


halfway between the black and grey

by UFOtofu



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Death Trooper Corin, Force sensitive Corin, M/M, but also kind of dumb, corin is a badass, non-OSHA approved use of kyber crystals, the 'D' in 'Din' stands for 'doesn't know what the fuck is going on', the inherent eroticism of well-performed violence, why can't i hold all these OCs dot jpg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22289206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UFOtofu/pseuds/UFOtofu
Summary: There’s a brush against his senses and DT-L13 spins around, blaster rifle raising, to find---A child.It’s small, and green, and toddling unsteadily towards him; and DT-L13 wasn’t even trying to feel the Force, but this creature is a maelstrom that even he can’t miss.“Are you the asset everyone is so worked up over?” DT-L13 wonders aloud. This explains all the resources being poured into one single asset; a being this strong in the Force could change everything for the remnants of the Empire, and one this young would be very moldable to the cause. DT-L13 knows the sort of programs the Empire has to twist the Force-attuned to their advantage.He is a product of them, after all.--AKA, the one in which Corin is a Death Trooper.
Relationships: Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret)/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 177
Kudos: 567





	1. no place for a life to waste away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyIrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Family and Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21758992) by [LadyIrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/pseuds/LadyIrina). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this whole trainwreck literally started with me going, ‘what if corin was force sensitive?’ except then i remembered he was born to a loyal imperialist family, and canonically, they get screened for that shit as children. then i galaxy brain mish-mashed some canon/legends/EU lore together and decided if corin was force sensitive, he would still get put on the trooper track by his family...but it would be as a death trooper, not a snow trooper. and you know what we saw in the show? death troopers.
> 
> and then corin’s team happened and this whole thing ran completely away from me.
> 
> i have tried to keep a lot of the broad strokes the same, but a whole death trooper-centric B plot for corin popped up and means this does start heavy on the fresh OCs. trust me, mandorin adventures across the galaxy are coming, and in the meantime, maybe give my death trooper idiots a chance? i tried to make them not suck too much. xoxo hugs and kisses
> 
> title is from Starlight Brigade by TWRP, which is honestly a half-decent Corin song in general

THE TEAM

Nevarro. Fuckin’ Nevarro.

It’s a milk run mission to play eye-candy for what passes for a Moff nowadays, and Lucky is, in all honesty, completely over it.

And unfortunately for the other four members of SpecOps Bravo--better known as Strike Team Blue--he has a lot to say about that.

“I just don’t see why the Moff needs us on some backwater planet in the first place,” Lucky complains to no one in general.

“It’s hardly our first Outer Rim mission,” counters Sevy, half-heartedly. Lucky knows she’s arguing more out of habit than anything--she hasn’t gotten to shoot anyone in weeks. The sniper slumps further down in her seat next to him, idly poking at the half-eaten rations on the table in front of her.

“Yeah, but most of those were assassinations or coups,” he whines. “This is busywork!” 

From his other side, Veero pokes him with his fork. “For someone who cares about luck so much you sure seem determined to jinx us.”

Lucky rolls his eyes at the team’s intel specialist. Getting sent to Nevarro of all places is bad enough luck on it’s own, no jinxing required. “At this point, I wouldn’t mind. How long has it been since we had any good action?”

On the other side of the table, Razor and Dubs are ignoring him while they negotiate some overly complicated exchange of desserts. The tiny galley of their shuttle is a bit cramped to seat five people, and none of them are exactly small, but it’s a rarity to have the whole team together for a meal at once. They all like to make the most of it when the opportunity arises, even if that means sitting around eating depressing military cuisine and whining.

Right now it’s the final hyperspace jump before a mission, so that means they’ve synchronized their wake schedules, and Razor can actually step away from his pilot’s chair to join them. Once they arrive, it’ll be all business.

“If you want action, we can always get Sevy to shoot you,” Razor offers distractedly. He’s scored a small pile of rehydrated darkberries that have most of his attention.

“No shooting each other,” Dubs says with a tired sigh. “I’m sure we will have plenty of targets to waste our time on in a few hours. You know how these Moffs are.”

They all make general noises of agreement. Dubs, as team captain, has to deal with the Moffs more than the rest of them, but you don’t get promoted to Moff unless you like to swing your weight around.

A team of Death Troopers makes for quite the weight.

“This guy is a joke, though,” Lucky grouses. “I don’t get why we’re stuck with him holding our leash. It never would’ve happened before the Empire fell.”

A moment passes in silence while they let those words hang in the air. Only a few scant years prior and he would have barely dared whisper them. Lucky knows they aren’t supposed to consider the Empire ‘fallen’. He knows complaining about superior officers, even if only to his team, is considered next to treason. He knows a hint of this at the wrong time to the wrong person would have slated him for full reconditioning, once upon a time. 

Of course, once upon a time he wouldn’t have even been able to _think_ these sorts of thoughts, let alone voice them. But a lot has changed since then.

Then Razor snorts. “You’re just pissy it’s another hot job.”

Lucky groans and thumps his head back on his chair. “It’s just my luck, all these volcanic planets. Why can’t we go chase our tails somewhere cold for a change?”

“Careful,” Veero warns. “Don’t tempt fate. Remember Hoth?”

“Hoth wasn’t _that_ bad,” Lucky grumbles to himself.

Sevy slugs him in the shoulder. “ _Fuck Hoth_ ,” she spits, with feeling. “If I have to spend another mission defrosting my damn rifle between every kriffing shot, it really will be you I shoot next. Do you know what a pain that was to calibrate around?”

“It’s not like you missed any targets,” Lucky points out, rolling his eyes.

“I never do,” Sevy replies, voice dry. “But that doesn’t mean I want to use icicles as scope sights.”

“It’s a moot point,” Dubs cuts in before they can get full steam on their usual bickering. “Nevarro is our assignment, so that’s where we are going.”

Almost on cue, the proximity alert starts to beep in the cockpit above the galley. Razor sighs and shovels the rest of his berries in his mouth at once, making his cheeks bulge, before he stands and tosses his tray in the sink on his way to the ladder.

The conversation dies out entirely, and the rest of them finish their meals in silence before slipping away one at a time to go through their individual prep routines. Sevy is the last to leave before Lucky; she scruffs his hair before she goes, but her eyes are already far away.

Lucky knows his must look the same. He can already feel his mind sinking down into the patterns and processes that make him the lethal weapon the Empire built him to be. He stands, and goes to get ready.

They have a mission, after all.

\--

NEVARRO

Dubs briefs the team on final approach to Nevarro, all of them gearing up in the main hold of their shuttle, apart from Razor in the cockpit who is listening via intercom.

The planet has strategic value for an undisclosed reason, so they have been recalled to assist Moff Gideon in subjugating the main trade hub city. It was once under Empire control but security has been lax, and they are there to restore order. There is a Star Destroyer in high orbit to secure the airspace, and they will personally assist the Moff on the ground.

Lucky sighs, even as he continues cleaning and assembling his E-11D blaster rifle. That’s just a very fancy way to say they are on guard dog duty. Occupying a backwater planet like this doesn’t require Death Troopers--even a platoon of the greenest freshly-graduated Storm Troopers could manage it, although they would probably do a shit job, if Lucky is being fair.

Moff Gideon wants them as a status symbol; nothing more, nothing less.

It’s good for intimidation points, but it’s a waste of resources. As a SpecOps strike team, they are a specialist squad best suited for high-value, high-difficulty missions, and it’s not like the diminishing Empire has any shortage of _those_. Insult to injury is the fact that there _are_ Death Trooper escort teams, ones trained and dedicated towards protecting the highest ranking echelons of the Empire’s elite.

Lucky wonders why Moff Gideon can’t just call one of those squads in.

He really wonders.

Dubs is listing off logistics details, the numbers and types of other forces that will be there, the rough outlay of the city, the predicted amounts of resistance they will face or not face, and Lucky commits it all to memory, because he is very good at what he does, but the annoyance remains.

Next to him at the weapons cabinet, Veero is already nearly done gearing up. On his other side, Sevy ghosts her hand across her favorite sniper rifle, but pulls out an E-11D blaster rifle identical to the one in Lucky’s hands. He likewise casts a longing glance at his lovely Z-6 SR rotary blaster cannon, but settles for equipping an extra brace of C-25 frag grenades, probably the most he can get away with in terms of extra firepower.

An SE-15R blaster pistol goes into his thigh holster, and then the only thing left are comms and HUD checks.

Sevy pulls on her helmet, and then she is DT-S47, every hint of noncompliance disappearing like snow in the sun. DT-V08 nods at her, and starts running the HUD checks. It’s a somewhat lengthy process; their helmets come with integrated macro-monitor sensory monitors, in addition to multi-frequency targeting and acquisition systems, and they have a team-dedicated comm line that includes voice encryption and scrambling. Just because it’s a blow-off job doesn’t mean they can be anything less than perfect.

Lucky slides his own helmet down, and it’s DT-L13 who looks out from the viewscreen.

He is a Death Trooper. Nothing more. Nothing less.

\---

DT-R29 lands the team shuttle outside of town, setting down next to the Moff’s much larger transport ship. A number of Storm Troopers and Scout Troopers are already assembling there, milling about and generally looking only vaguely competent. When Blue Team disembarks, a wave of muttering and then silence spreads as their presence becomes known.

The other troopers give them a very wide berth as they pass, cutting a swath down their midst. Moff Gideon awaits them at the base of his ship, and he looks smugly pleased. The team automatically takes up their positions around him as W22 reports to the Moff with a sharp salute.

Then it’s time to take Nevarro.

The main force of troopers do most of the heavy lifting, but Moff Gideon is a big believer in being seen, so he is right behind the forward line as the troops clear out anyone who might feel like resisting Imperial presence, and bringing the local gangs to heel.

It’s the usual drill; surround the town, set the perimeter, and then work inwards. Shoot a few locals to make a point, maybe hold a public execution or two for anyone with loud opinions, and let the fear of retaliation do the rest.

W22 is the team’s ranking captain, but it’s L13 who takes point as they go, clearing the way for the Moff. He’s a combat specialist, the closest thing the team has to a generalist, and that makes him most suited to lead the way into any action. W22 and V08 flank the Moff, and R29 brings up the rear, keeping him protected on all sides.

S47, as always, trails just after, her eyes constantly scanning the rooftops and vantage points for sniper threats. It takes one to know one, after all.

Nevarro is Gideon’s before nightfall.

There is still work to be done for the mission, but the Moff is apparently a believer in getting his beauty sleep, because he calls for a halt to action, to resume at dawn. However Gideon, for all his flaws, doesn’t want them tucking him in at night and reading him a bedtime story like some Moffs do, so Blue Team gets to retire to their own shuttle and set the usual night rotation instead.

A pleasant surprise.

L13 takes first watch while the rest of the team sleeps, standing guard outside their shuttle in case any of the locals get it into their heads to raise a reprisal in the middle of the night. It’s standard procedure; he takes point on the ground, so he takes point on the guard rotation. He needs to have the sharpest reactions, so that gives him the continuous sleep block.

A few quiet hours pass, and then W22 comes to relieve him from the boring heat of the Nevarro night.

It wasn’t a particularly strenuous day, but Lucky knows to get his rest where he can, so he chows down the leftover dinner ration set aside for him and then wastes no time hitting the rack. Their shuttle has a single cramped room for sleeping quarters; there are two double bunks in the room, one on each side, for a total of four beds. Lucky supposes the intention was that they could each have one to themselves while their fifth member took watch, but in all their years together, he’s literally never seen all four in use at once.

Razor is sleeping on the top bunk of the bed to the right, but he’s the weirdo on the team and actually prefers sleeping alone. The bottom left bunk holds Veero and Sevy, curled towards each other like parentheses. Lucky strips to his base layer--no sleepwear is permitted on combat missions, though at least it isn’t one of the ones where they are stuck sleeping in full armor--and climbs in beside them to wedge against the wall.

Veero barely shifts, but Sevy rolls over to face him, blinking sleepily. Her flat grey eyes are made eerie by the way they catch the dim light and reflect it, giving her the shifting eyeshine of a nocturnal predator.

Death Trooper snipers get all the coolest eye augmentations.

“Quiet night?” she whispers, drowsy.

“Yeah,” Lucky huffs softly back. “A waste of our time, just like I thought.”

Sevy frowns a little. “Careful,” she cautions softly. “If Gideon figures you out...if he has you reconditioned, you know he’s the type who will make sure its a mindscrape.”

She’s referring to the ‘blank-slate’ protocol, the highest level of reconditioning possible.

Lucky’s chest clenches a little at the thought, but he still forces himself to whisper, “I don’t...I don’t think they can recondition us anymore.” It feels dangerous to say, even just breathing it into the few inches that separate him and his team mate.

Sevy exhales, slow and heavy.

“I know,” she carefully whispers back. “None of us have been called since Endor. And things are so…” she trails off.

“Yeah,” he agrees. He knows what she means. They are almost like people, nowadays. “I just keep thinking...what if all the facilities got destroyed?”

“What does that mean for us?” she asks, glowing eyes roving his face.

He just stares at her, wordlessly. That’s not a question he knows how to answer. Beside them, Veero rolls over with a loud snort, breaking the moment, and they both trade amused looks at his expense.

“Get some more rest,” Lucky whispers, and he turns to face the wall. Sevy slips her arm around his waist; she knows how much he loves to be the little spoon.

It’s not all bad, being a Death Trooper. At least he has his team.

\--

MOFF GIDEON

The following day brings both more answers and more questions.

Moff Gideon keeps them close, so they get to spend their day sweating in the heat while they trail after him like ducklings. Very highly trained, lethal ducklings.

However, it means they will get a front row seat to the Moff’s meeting with the local warlord, an ex-Imperial officer with delusions of grandeur. He’s the one who has been Gideon’s contact in the town, and he’s the one who has been trying to obtain an asset of some sort that Gideon desires.

From what L13 gleans, this was meant to buy the man his way back into a position of power in the Imperial remnant, but he managed to lose the asset before he could hand it in. Bad luck for him, L13 supposes.

The Moff has them secure the area before he meets with his contact, so the team disperses to do just that. Their helmet HUDs come with a built in mapping and tracking feature, so as they split up and scour the building and surrounding areas, an accurate multi-dimensional map is automatically pieced together and displayed for their benefit. It’s just one of many things on display in the HUD, which L13 takes in automatically, so used to it that it barely even registers.

The contact has his own protection detail, a handful of ex-Storm Troopers in ragged, worn-down armor, but they stay out of L13’s way. They stay very, _very_ far out of his way.

There’s not much to the building; it seems to be a repurposed former cantina or club, so there’s just a front hallway, the main room, a back hallway, and some storage rooms. There’s a fair amount of recent battle damage on the walls, but otherwise everything is unremarkable.

Except--

Except one of the rooms has been converted into a small makeshift medical facility.

L13 stills at the sight.

He knows that equipment. He knows those chemical canisters on the shelves. He knows that model of droid. He knows it very, very well.

S47 comes up beside him. “No reconditioning facilities left, huh?” she murmurs, voice scrambled but off comms. His ears only.

“No chair,” L13 points out, just as soft. It’s piecemeal reconditioning equipment, or looks very much like it, except it doesn’t seem set up for actual use on a person. The table and brace are strange, and the conductor oddly small. It unsettles him, and he has to stop himself from reaching to his chest. 

He turns on his heel, and continues his patrol.

\--

Moff Gideon finally deigns to speak with his contact, and the team gets to stand around looking intimidating, all for the benefit of a man who is already clearly feeling very threatened.

Apparently, it’s a Mandalorian who has stolen the asset from the ex-Imperial. Well, that explains all the battle damage, L13 surmises. One man versus a mercenary’s protection force is a very uneven battle, when that one man is a Mandalorian.

“I’ve already got every bounty hunter in the sector after both the asset and the Mandalorian,” the contact emphatically assures Gideon. “When he shows his head, we will know, and we will have him in no time. Both of them.”

“I don’t care about the Mandalorian,” the Moff drawls with contempt. The contact shrinks in his seat. “I simply want my asset. And we’ve already seen how...disappointing your bounty hunter contacts are.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the man rushes to agree. “And I will have the asset for you in no time! I swear this, on my honor.”

Gideon gives a low chuckle. “You should swear on something with value if you want me to take you seriously. You’ve had your chance, so why should I grant you another?”

The man pales. “I will get you your asset, believe me! I’ve already had it retrieved once, and I will make it happen again!”

The Moff gives him a long once over. “Hmm, well. We will see I suppose.” The man sags in relief at his apparent reprieve.

Then Gideon turns in place to address their captain. “DT-W22,” he calls, and their captain snaps a sharp salute. “Can your team handle a simple hunting assignment?”

W22 nods, sharp. “Affirmative. Tracking and retrieval are primary functions of this unit--”

Gideon cuts him off, sneering. “Did I ask you for your life story? I don’t think so, so don’t waste my time.”

“Yes, sir. Understood.” W22 stays still, and his voice stays level.

L13 doesn’t react, either, nor does the rest of the team, not a single shift in body language or even a change in breathing. They are Death Troopers, after all.

Gideon turns back to the contact. “Let’s see who can get results first, your men, or mine. That will determine your future...or lack of one...with the Empire.”

The man visibly swallows, wide-eyed. “Yes--yes, of course, an excellent plan,” he simpers, though L13 can tell he is weighing the odds of a Death Trooper strike team versus whatever motley collection of bounty hunters work in this corner of the sector. 

The odds are probably not in his favor. Bad luck, that.

Gideon turns back to W22. “What are you waiting for? Take your team and get moving. I want that asset returned to me.”

“Affirmative,” W22 replies with a sharp salute, and then they are on the move once more.

\--

Razor makes a bee-line for the cockpit as soon as they reach their shuttle, and he has the pre-flight routine underway before Lucky even gets his helmet off. Lucky and the rest of the team re-rack their gear and start stripping armor in preparation for travel, and he knows he’s not the only one feeling very cheered up.

Veero already has a datapad in one hand, even as he divests himself of gear with his other hand, already diving into the intel they will need for their pursuit. Sevy catches Lucky’s eye and gives him a quick grin as she slams her E-11D rifle in the weapons locker as if it has personally offended her, and Dubs just looks amused.

“Alright kids,” Dubs says, reaching to ruffle Sevy’s hair. “Time for a hunt!”

\--

ON THE HUNT

“I just don’t get why they are being so cagey about it!” Veero rants, waving his data pad around and nearly beaning Dubs in the head. It’s a tight fit, with all of them crammed in a cockpit that only seats three, but Razor needs to be at the controls and they need to go over intel, so they are making it work.

Sevy snorts. “You’re asking for too much competence, when have they ever wanted to make anything too easy on us?”

“Still!” Veero rants, “They could at least tell us _what_ the asset even is!” This time he _does_ nail Dubs with the datapad. “Oops, sorry, old man.”

Dubs swats at him. “It’s a living asset, right? So that means it’s a person.”

Veero frowns. “See, you would think so, but the reports all seem to reference it like it has no agency. Look, see, here it’s detailing how it was ‘stolen’ by the Mandalorian. Not that it was ‘freed by’ or ‘escaped with’ him.”

Sevy hums thoughtfully. “So it’s alive, but it’s not a person. But it’s still something that Gideon wants badly enough to raise this much fuss for, and he’s not sentimental, so I’m doubting someone stole his lap pet.”

“Ysalamir?” Lucky suggests, and there’s a pause while they all consider that possibility. Ysalamiri were rare lizard-like creatures that nullified any Force capability in their vicinity, creating a bubble of space around them where no Force powers could work.

“That could explain why a Mandalorian might want the asset, they hate the Jedi,” Veero considers with a tilt of the head.

“Not a lot of Jedi left anymore, though,” says Sevy.

“Not a lot of Mandalorians either,” points out Razor, though he doesn’t look up from his flight calculations.

Veero twists his lips. “It’s probably the best guess yet, but I’m not convinced. I’m half-tempted to slice into the classified servers and just find out for ourselves.”

“Negatory on that,” Dubs says firmly. “We don’t actually need to know what the asset it to retrieve it, and I don’t need you getting reconditioned mid-mission if you get caught in the databases.”

“I wouldn’t get caught,” Veero mumbles to himself, but he lets it go. He’s probably right; Lucky knows what a good slicer he is. Give him access to any network more advanced than cans strung together with string and he could usually dig out whatever data he wanted.

“They aren’t reconditioning us nowadays anyways,” Sevy tosses out casually into the conversation, much the same way one might casually toss a frag grenade into a crowded enemy bunker.

No one reacts to it, but they are all non-reacting in the specific way that makes it obvious how _deliberately_ they are not reacting. At a certain point, being good at controlling physical tells becomes a tell of its own.

“ _Anyways_ , intel suggests the Mandalorian will be keeping the asset with him, correct?” Dubs finally says, breaking the tension. “So we find him, we find the asset.”

“Looks so,” Veero confirms. “And we’ve got plenty of intel on him.”

“Well then, let’s catch ourselves a Mandalorian,” Dubs says. “Razor, you already plotting course to the last sighting of him?”

Razor snorts. “Yeah, and Lucky’s gonna love it. It’s a triple star system, so it’s a nice, toasty desert planet for him to enjoy.”

Lucky groans and buries his head in his hands. “Three kriffin’ suns?” he moans into his hands. Sevy pats him on the back, but she’s laughing at his expense while she does it, so he just elbows her in return. Why does he have such bad luck when it comes to planets?

“Something about this is bothering me, though,” Razor adds, absently rubbing at his chest. Veero frowns thoughtfully, but Sevy is already nodding agreement, her own hand drifting towards her throat. 

Lucky lets his eyes slip closed as he chases whatever they are feeling.

All Death Troopers were at least slightly Force sensitive. In fact, that was how they got put on the specialist track in the first place, when they were scouted during the routine screening most young loyalist children went through. Not enough ability to be pulled into Project Harvester, and definitely not enough to be any kind of Jedi or Sith, but enough to have a slight edge.

Slightly quicker reactions. Slightly better aim. Slightly sharper combat instincts.

At their level, ‘slightly’ goes a very long way.

Lucky can’t use the Force to move objects with his mind, or choke someone with a mere gesture, like he had heard the Sith could do, but he can listen in. And, courtesy of the Empire’s secret Death Trooper enhancement program, he has a tiny kyber crystal embedded underneath his breastbone to help him do just that.

With his eyes shut, he pulls his awareness into his chest then stretches his way back out, searching for that strange sensation that was the Force moving around them. Razor and Sevy both described it like floating in an ocean, but as the team pilot and sniper, they were more sensitive than the rest. For Lucky, it feels more like standing in open air and trying to feel the wind.

The Force _is_ stirring. It always does, a bit, but not quite like this, and to Lucky’s senses there is a heat to that breeze, one that brings fire to mind and makes him shudder.

He lets the feeling go and opens his eyes again. “Feels like bad luck to me,” he murmurs. “I don’t like it.” Sevy leans into him, knocking shoulders, and he presses back gratefully.

Across the cockpit from them, Dubs looks troubled. “Keep your heads up, and your eyes sharp,” he says. “The old code doesn’t apply anymore, I don’t want any of us dying for some outer rim warlord.”

“Copy that, captain,” Veero says emphatically. Sevy grunts in agreement, and Lucky nods his approval. No dying was a great policy in his opinion.

“How long until arrival?” Dubs asks Razor.

“Three days and change.”

“Alright, you heard him.” Dubs claps his hands. “The usual drill, let’s get sleep rotation back on, make sure you each get in a full armor and weapons screen, and at least two blocks of personal drills or training, preferably three. Veero, that includes you.”

“Aye aye, cap’n!” Veero gives an exaggerated salute with his datapad, and Dubs once again has to duck a head injury.

“Get outta here,” Dubs grumbles, but he’s hiding a smile, the softie. It’s been years since Veero could be properly called a rookie, but Lucky isn’t the only one who still halfway thinks of him as the team baby, as rookies are usually known.

Lucky drops from the cockpit and heads right for the shuttle training room. If he’s gonna have to go stomp around on a desert planet again, he’s gonna try and get all the sweat out of himself ahead of time.

It’s just bad luck, is what it is.

\--

FIRE AND ICE

It turns out it’s not _all_ bad luck, which is a nice change of pace. By the time Blue Team makes it to the ball of sand, the Mandalorian is already long gone, so it’s slated to be a brief visit.

DT-L13 is glad for his helmet’s sophisticated filtering system as he scouts out the carnage left in the wake of the Mandalorian. He had apparently been pursued by a number of bounty hunters, and had managed to take them all out before leaving again.

The remains have been sitting out in the heat of the _three fucking suns_ of this system for days now, and L13 can only imagine how bad the smell must be, even if scavengers have already picked at the bodies. 

There’s not a lot to be gleaned, though. The Mandalorian is clearly very skilled to keep winning such lopsided confrontations, but that’s not a surprise for one of his kind. The red sand of the terrain hides much of the battle evidence, and the site has clearly been picked over by sentient scavengers as well as the local wildlife, but L13 spends a bit of time trying to interpret the battle signs and get a read on the Mandalorian’s fighting skills.

L13 is a combat specialist; battle reconstruction is one of his favorite parts of the job, and the Mandalorian has given him the most interesting work in months. He sees evidence of blaster damage, use of some sort of long weapon--possibly a staff or other melee weapon?--and judging from the mostly buried furrow in the sand leading towards one of the corpses, he suspects a grappling line was used as well.

The seventh and final body he finds troubles him; it’s less of a body, and more of a smear. It almost looks like the work of an implosion grenade, except the nearby terrain doesn’t show the signs to match it. Possibly a smaller implosion charge; Mandalorians are known to have unique weaponry of their own production.

L13 rubs absently at his chest, then catches himself with a frown. He closes his eyes, focuses; but there’s nothing stirring that he can feel. Hmm.

There’s only one settlement nearby, and V08 and W22 are already there interviewing potential witnesses, so L13 makes his way over to join them.

It turns out there’s only a single resident there, a female Zeltron, who is being a bit cagey about the whole thing. L13 strongly suspects she’s the one that picked over the battle scene, which is probably a contributing factor. He fills his teammates in on what he found while he eyes the place, the voice scramblers of his helmet guaranteeing that she won’t understand what he’s saying.

The woman is a bit nervous, but seems equally annoyed. “I’ve already told you, I didn’t go to the place until the next day. Everyone was already dead, six bodies, so anyone you are looking for would either be one of the dead, or they would be gone.”

“Seven bodies,” L13 corrects, unscrambled for her benefit.

She looks startled; it’s the first true break in her composure since L13 joined in.

“I only saw six,” she says, and it sounds genuine. She’s still hiding something, but L13 is pretty sure at this point it’s just how much she looted from the site. As if Death Troopers care about enforcing local scavenging laws.

W22 tilts his head in consideration. L13 knows he’s debating if doing a full interrogation would be worth the effort; L13 personally doubts it, but it’s not his call to make, and V08 has the tools at hand in his kit, if necessary.

The choice gets made when R29 buzzes them from the ship, scrambled. “Just received a transmission update, Imperial forces just made contact with the target the next sector quadrant over.”

“Copy that,” W22 comms back. “Team, regroup at ship and prepare to depart.”

It’s a lucky break for them. It’s a lucky break for the Zeltron woman as well, even if she doesn’t know it.

“Thank you for your time,” V08 says to the woman, because he’s the most socialized of the team, and gets a scowl in return for his trouble.

L13 just turns and makes for the shuttle. He’s ready to get the hell off of this planet; he can already tell what a pain clearing the red sand out of his armor is going to be. He hopes the next stop is a colder one.

\--

The next stop _is_ a colder one and Lucky is fucking ecstatic. Finally, some good luck!

Well, not too much good luck. The Mandalorian has already moved on from this planet before they got there, and he had taken out two squads of snow troopers in the process, but that still does little to dampen Lucky’s mood.

Snow! Ice! It’s the sort of place he would have loved to have been stationed at, if he was part of the generalist forces.

Some bad luck, though, is that there are remaining Imperial forces in the area for them to rendezvous with, which means L13 can’t give in to his heart’s desires and roll around in the snow--Death Troopers do have a certain image to maintain, and it’s one that doesn’t allow for sledding and making snowmen, sadly--but he does allow himself the luxury of turning down his suit’s containment levels, enough to let the chill slip in.

A subtle adjustment to his helmet filters, and he can even inhale the sharp smell of frost as he scopes out the battle scenes this planet holds for him.

And there are two separate sites, which is impressive in its own way. The Mandalorian had won not once, but twice, both times out numbered and in a hostile environment, facing forces trained and equipped to handle it. Weather data even showed there had been a spin-up blizzard in the duration of time between the two engagements.

L13 is increasingly more and more impressed by their quarry.

The Mandalorian’s ship had taken damage, and he had fled into ice needle terrain with a team in pursuit. Then he had lured the troopers to where he could set off charges to trigger a targeted avalanche--and those were tricky to control, to make sure it would only affect your enemies and not backfire on you. That had taken out almost the entire squad, and then the Mandalorian had clearly finished off the sole surviving snow trooper and divested him of his survival gear.

Returning to his ship, he had ambushed the trooper squad sent as reinforcements, then cannibalized their ship to repair his own and escape.

Lucky is impressed by his ingenuity, and he tells his team about it at length as they leave atmosphere to continue the hunt.

“This is four battles in a row where he was outnumbered _at minimum_ six to one, all of them in locations where he had the disadvantage, and he still keeps winning them!” he explains cheerfully to Veero as he dutifully fills in the observed battle intel on the datapad in his hand.

“Yes, very impressive,” Veero agrees distractedly, tapping at his own datapad. “Beating squads of washed out troopers and backwater mercenaries is a true showcase of skill.”

Lucky rolls his eyes. “You just have no appreciation for the fine art of combat.”

“I appreciate it just fine,” Veero counters, flicking a glance his way. “I’m just not going to gush over a mission target like a civilian bootchaser with a crush.”

It’s only Dub’s intervention that keeps Lucky’s attempt at killing his team mate from succeeding.

“Say it again and I’ll give you some _real_ combat appreciation!” Lucky shouts from the floor, except Dubs is sitting on his neck, which makes the threat a little less credible than it might have otherwise been. Dubs and Veero are lucky that Sevy is on sleep rotation; she’s always down to team up with Lucky in the name of violence.

Razor sticks his head down from the cockpit. “Hey, Lucky, I think I have some silver paint if you want me to do up your armor to match,” he offers with a grin.

“Come at me with any paint and I’ll let you pick which of your orifices I put the paint can,” Lucky threatens in return.

Dubs just sighs heavily from his seat on Lucky’s back. “Just finish your mission report and go to sleep. We’re still on mission, you can save the friendly fire until after we’ve caught up to your boy.”

“Not my boy,” grumbles Lucky, but he lets Dubs pull him to his feet and settles down to obey orders.

\--

The Mandalorian has good skills, no matter what his team says, but beskar isn’t subtle, and it’s not exactly hard work to track sightings and his trail of destruction as he hops his way across the sector. Eventually his luck has to run out, and it does. They catch up to him within the week.

Their quarry goes to ground on a temperate, forested planet with an old defunct rebellion base. He lands his ship near to it, and he must have something in mind that he is hoping to scavenge from it, some sort of supplies or equipment. Blue team watches from far orbit in the radar shadow of one of the planet’s small moons, waiting until he disembarks and enters the facility, and then drop into atmo and circle the facility, tightening the noose.

It’s been a good hunt, and now it’s time for the kill.

Or well, okay, the _capture_ , but that’s not as catchy, Lucky thinks. He’s nearly bouncing as he gears up, blood hot; it’s been months since they’ve seen any real action--he doesn’t count taking potshots at bumpkins on Nevarro--and live-capture of a Mandalorian sounds like it could be _fun_.

He’s seen the results of the Mandalorian’s fighting skills. Now he’s going to get his chance to see them up close. It’s _exciting_.

R29 sweeps low, dropping the rest of the team off on each side of the compound. Sevy gets the high ground to the north, but Lucky gets the west side, closest to where the Mandalorian entered.

DT-L13’s boots hit the ground, and then the final hunt is on.

\--

THE MEETCUTE

The defunct rebellion base was clearly abandoned due to a strategic reason as opposed to any battle--the facility is derelict and in disrepair, but it’s largely intact. L13 makes his way down the corridors like a ghost, his HUD mapping every step and tracing every surface, and he’s glad for the night vision, as the number of sun lights and broken out windows varies dramatically section to section.

He’s finding disturbances in the dirt and on surfaces now, and he knows he’s getting close. L13’s pulse is up, his pulse is pounding with anticipation, and he’s on the highest alert, ready around every corner to finally come face-to-face with his target.

He enters a room, well lit from tall, broken out windows on the long southern wall, and finds corridors splitting opposite directions from the two short ends of the room. He slowly creeps his way over, wary of ambush, to try and decide which path to follow.

Then there’s a brush against his senses and L13 spins around, rifle raising, to find---

A child.

It’s small, and green, and toddling unsteadily towards him, and L13 wasn’t even trying to feel the Force, but this creature is a maelstrom that even he can’t miss.

It’s a bit like being hit by an avalanche, and L13 can do little more than just watch as the child stumbles to a halt in front of him, unsteady and wide-eyed. The child babbles a series of coos at him, and L13 kneels down, helplessly, to crouch closer to its level.

“Are you the asset everyone is so worked up over?” L13 asks, turning his helmet scrambling off even though the question is directed more to himself than the child. Oh, this is bad luck. Very bad luck. L13 hadn’t given any consideration to the possibility that his target might be barely more than an infant.

This explains all the resources being poured into one single asset; a being this strong in the Force could change everything for the remnants of the Empire, and one this young would be very moldable to the cause. L13 knows the sort of programs the Empire has to twist the Force-attuned to their advantage.

He is a product of them, after all.

Abruptly, L13 thinks of the exam bed back on Nevarro, the one that was so much like the chair from the reconditioning facility...and oh, this is very, very bad luck indeed.

The little green creature grasps clumsily at his forearm, and L13 obligingly leans over closer, careful to keep his blaster rifle safely out of reach. The child makes grabby hands towards his upper torso, babbling in an inquisitive fashion, and the trooper puts two and two together.

“Oh, do you sense my kyber crystal, little one?” He presses his free hand against his throat and concentrates in that particular way that draws the Force in to make him feel a bit warm. The child giggles and bounces with delight, clearly sensing it, and L13 grins under his helmet.

“You like that, huh?” he teases, but then the smile drops off his face. This young creature is his target, and considering what a beacon it is in the Force, even if it can’t be raised to serve their side, it still has high value. There’s a genetic component to Force capability, after all. L13 has a very good idea of what its future looked like.

Experiments. Harvesting. Treatments.

_Reconditioning._

The kyber crystal suddenly sits heavy in his chest, and he is hit with a flashbulb memory of waking up from surgery, something sharp wedged deep under the edge of his collarbone, placed among his arteries in such a way that removal would guarantee his death, and feeling simultaneously both unmoored and anchored by the way it pinned him to the Force like a butterfly to a board. 

It wasn’t the least favorite of his augmentations, but it was surely the least of what they might do to this little one.

The child has quit trying to reach for his collar, and is now occupying itself by trying to grasp at the C-25 frag grenades on L13’s belt. “No, no, you’re too young for those,” the trooper admonishes it distractedly. He digs into his tool pouch and pulls out a small flashlight instead, one of the ubiquitous little handheld ones on a clip that always seem to find their way into every loadout kit.

He clicks the light on and off in demonstration and hands it to the child, thoroughly distracting it, and it plops down at his feet, cheerfully turning the light off and on, and promptly shoving the attached clip halfway in its mouth.

L13 meanwhile sits back on his heels while he contemplates what to do. The correct answer was the obvious one: collect the asset, rendezvous with his team, then return to Nevarro as directed and turn the asset over into Gideon’s hands.

He doesn’t want to do it. He’s done far worse things before than sentence a child to an undoubtedly unpleasant future, but this sits wrong with him.

A lot of things sit wrong with him, nowadays.

L13 isn’t even trying to listen to it, but the Force is tugging at him in a way it never has before. It feels like standing on thin, cracked ice, and knowing not to make a wrong move. Or maybe it’s more like the moment before an avalanche, all the heavy potential of a massive wall of snow just waiting for a nudge to fall.

“What are we gonna do with you?” he murmurs. He rubs his thumb idly at his comm switch, ready to call in to his team. He’s been ignoring their background chatter in his ear for the past period of time as W22 and V08 work in from their sides of the perimeter, guided by S47’s vantage point. They aren’t going to like this any more than he does, especially V08.

A child. A kriffing Force saturated child. Why is it with the Mandalorian? Don’t they dislike Force-users? A troubling thought occurs to L13--is it the Mandalorian’s child?

The child in question now has the light end of the flash light inside its mouth, its muffled giggles backlit by the intermittent green glow emanating from its cheeks as it turns the flashlight off and on. It might be the cutest thing L13 has ever seen.

There’s a noise down the corridor and L13 reacts instantly, scooping the child up and raising his rifle right as the Mandalorian himself appears in the doorway. The Mandalorian freezes, taking in the tableau in front of him, tension written in the stiff lines of his body, and L13 now has no doubt that this is the Mandalorian’s child. L13 is practiced at reading emotions past a helmet, but even if he wasn’t, the sheer desperation pouring off of the man is obvious--and it’s also obviously not fear for himself, but for the asset.

After all, it must be something out of a parent’s worst nightmares, to find your child in the arms of the Death Trooper assigned to hunt you down.

They stay frozen for a long moment, the silence only punctuated by the burbles of the child as it continues to chew on its flashlight with the single-minded determination of the young. L13 has the child, and the raised rifle, and the rest of his team at his call. The Mandalorian is undoubtedly armed, but is at every disadvantage at the moment. 

The stalemate stretches out.

“What do they want with it?” L13 finally asks, even though he’s got a very good idea.

The Mandalorian shifts slightly, helmet tilting. “I don’t know,” he finally answers, voice carefully even. “Nothing good.”

The child twists in L13’s arms at the voice of its father’s voice and it makes a series of delighted sounds when it spots him, wriggling to reach out towards him. The Mandalorian makes an aborted movement forward, then pulls back again, fingers twitching.

That decides it for L13, and he sighs and lowers his rifle. The Mandalorian twitches again, clearly struggling not to make any panicked reactions. 

“Please don’t shoot me,” L13 asks, hoping a little good luck might be left around for him. 

“What?” the Mandalorian asks blankly.

“Because then I would be obligated to shoot you back, and I don’t want the kid to get hurt,” L13 explains, which doesn’t seem to lessen the other man’s confusion. So instead he just leans over and sets the child down. It promptly makes a beeline for its father, flashlight still in hand.

The Mandalorian immediately scoops him up and draws his blaster pistol with his other hand.

“Come on, what did I just say?” L13 groans. “Just take the kid and go. I’ll get my team to stand down, but don’t let us catch up to you again.”

The Mandalorian hesitates. “Why would you let us go?”

L13 is pretty sure he has lost his damn mind, and in the old days this would’ve gotten him not just reconditioned, but the blank-slate scrape to boot.

But he hasn’t been reconditioned since before Endor, so maybe it’s less about losing his mind, and more about finding it again. There’s no point in trying to explain that to the Mandalorian, though.

“Must be your lucky day,” L13 says instead.

The Mandalorian hesitates a second longer, but he’s clearly a smart, practical man, because he spins on his heel and retreats without demanding any better answers. Which is good, because L13 doesn’t have any to give him.

L13 watches him go, then turns his scramblers back on and buzzes his comm. Time to make good on his word. “I engaged with our target and the asset, but I recommend withdrawing and allowing it to retreat.”

“Copy that One-Three,” W22 says back. “Any particular reason?”

“I believe our intel is flawed and we should reconvene and reassess our plan of action,” L13 replies, knowing they will read into it, and counting on them doing so.

“You have updated intel?” V08 asks, voice sharp with interest.

S47 interjects before L13 can elaborate. “I have eyes on target, now exiting north 5 degree ground level, heading 15 degree, moving on foot, brisk pace. I have him in my sights. Probability of successful neutralization high but dropping. What’s the call, captain?”

W22 buzzes back in. “Hold fire for now, Four-Seven.”

S47 cuts in again. “Update on visual, the target is carrying something with him, held secure in torso front via makeshift sling...something small that’s moving….” she trailed off, voice going a bit strange.

“What’s that update, One-Three?” W22 asks tersely. 

L13 blows out a breath. “Two-two, I made contact with the asset, and it’s a young member of a sentient species unknown to me. Very young, estimated developmental level equivalent to human toddler stage.”

“A fuckin’ child?” V08 bursts out on the line. “We’re on a hunt for a _child?_ ”

“Clear the chatter!” W22 reprimands, sharp. Their voice scramblers give them a degree of security, but open comms still aren’t a safe place to express any sort of dangerous opinions. “Four-Seven, do you still have the shot?”

S47 takes a long moment to reply. “Affirmative, captain,” she finally says, voice neutral.

The lines are silent for another moment. “Two-Nine, is stellar pursuit viable?”

“Affirmative,” R29 replies. “Target ship is not equipped for advanced evasion. Additional intel observed: cosmic field levels are highly agitated.” He was referring to the Force; as the team pilot he had a higher sensitivity that the rest.

“Agitation observed here as well,” S47, the second most Force-attuned on the team, confirms.

Another pause on the lines.

“Two-Nine, start exit prep,” W22 says with finality. “Team, withdraw to ship base to regroup. New plan of action: shadowing target at distance while new intel is assessed.”

“Roger,” V08 says emphatically, and the rest of them echo the acknowledgment.

L13 blows out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

The Force settles around him at that same time, and now it felt like he wasn’t standing on thin ice; he was on perfect, flat, glassy frozen water.

He doesn’t know what it means. He doesn’t know what any of this means.

He’s got the sinking feeling that with his luck, he’s going to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> project harvester is canon, where children of the empire and academy cadets were screened for force sensitivity by the grand inquisitor, and diverted to special training or programs if so.
> 
> the concept of embedding lightsaber crystals in a trooper for extra force powers is a nod to all the hours i spent playing JK2 as a kid. shout-out to my boy kyle katarn, this one’s for you. sorry you aren’t canon anymore.


	2. the road with all its stakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> death troopers can have a little treason. as a treat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have decided to stick with the convention of using 'it' pronouns for the child, since 'he' only gets used in like, episodes three and four that i can recall? if things change, i may go back and adjust, but for now, the kid is an 'it'. what an enby icon.
> 
> this chapter probably should be two chapters but fuck the writing police.

INTEL

“Green skin, small humanoid stature, large sideways ears, Force sensitivity…” Veero runs his hand through his hair, fingers catching and tugging on the curls. “I’ve got nothing. That’s not any species I’m familiar with.”

“And you think it’s the Mandalorian’s kid?” Sevy questions Lucky, eyebrows raised skeptically.

He shrugs at her. “Well, maybe not his genetic offspring? I mean, he could have green skin under his armor, how would I know? But they both sure acted like that was the case.”

The team is once again all crammed in the cockpit of their shuttle as they discuss the latest development in their mission. It’s a little trickier work for Razor this time--he’s routing them based off of the observed trajectories of the Mandalorian’s ship, riding the fine line between losing their target, and having him catch on that he’s being tailed.

“Could be a hybrid,” Veero suggests. Then he smirks. “Are you sure it’s not one of your kids? You and Sevy have plenty running around.”

Lucky and Sevy both snort. It’s an old running joke with the team.

“No, it’s too cute to be related to this ugly mug,” Lucky says, trying to smoosh Sevy’s face with his hand. She snaps her teeth at his hand, and he yelps and snatches it back from danger. Sevy can, will, and _has_ bitten him over less, and she tends to draw blood.

“The green must come from your side of the family,” Sevy cracks back. It’s an obvious joke; being fully human is one of the requirements for Death Troopers. Not that any of them are exactly human anymore, but still. 

Lucky doesn’t _actually_ have any children with Sevy. Or rather, to be more precise, he doesn’t actually _know of_ any children that he has with Sevy. In reality, it’s all but a given that they’ve got a few kids--or fifty kids, like the team joke usually goes--running around out there.

After all, the Project Harvester breeding program is an open secret, and Lucky and Sevy came out of the same Death Trooper program at the same time, so it’s all but a guarantee their genetic samples got crossed in the mix. Lucky mostly just feels pity for any infertile Imperial couples that might have had the bad luck to get saddled with raising their offspring.

“Was the Mandalorian Force-sensitive?” Veero asks, getting back on track, and Lucky frowns.

“If he was, I didn’t notice it,” he admits. “But I wasn’t really feeling for it, either. He definitely wasn’t like the child, and it had such a strong presence...I doubt I would’ve been able to pick him up. Razor could, maybe,” Lucky adds, tipping his head to the pilot.

“If we meet him on the ground again, we might try and get Razor in proximity to evaluate him. To evaluate them both,” Dubs adds thoughtfully. “Not that I don’t trust your judgement, but…”

“No, that’s a good call,” Lucky agrees. “This kid is hard to miss, trust me, but I’m not the expert. But honestly, even the Inquisitors didn’t feel like this, though that could just be a matter of discipline I suppose?”

Dubs huffs a breath. “More Force capability than an Inquisitor puts it into Jedi or Sith range. That’s insane. Did it compare to Vader’s presence?”

Lucky snorts. “The only time I remember seeing Vader in person I was too shit-scared to take notes. Maybe?”

“It explains why the Moff wants to get his hands on it so bad,” Sevy points out. “That’s a big stick to carry.”

“ _If_ he gets his hands on it,” Veero says, glancing up from his datapad. “But that’s only an ‘if’.”

“Is it?” Sevy asks. “It’s our mission. If we don’t retrieve the asset then we have failed. By choice.” She’s prodding, Lucky can tell, trying to edge the conversation into a more dangerous territory.

That seems to be happening more and more often as of late.

“What else can we do?” Razor doesn’t look up from the ship control panel. “There’s no ‘choice’ involved. Why do we even care?” It’s an honest question.

“We care because Gideon will mishandle this asset, and we all know it,” Lucky pauses, but no one disagrees. They’ve got firsthand experience being one of Gideon’s mishandled assets, after all. “Best case scenario is that Gideon ends up running around with a pet Sith on a leash, and we all know how that would go. Worst case scenario is that we turn it over, it gets dissected like a loth-rat for zero benefit to the Empire, and then the Mandalorian kills us all.”

“Benefit to _what_ Empire?” Veero mutters. He jabs a finger at his datapad. “There’s no ‘Empire’ anymore.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Razor snipes back. “Seeing as how we are loyal agents _of the Empire_ , or did you forget that?”

“Hard to forget,” Sevy jumps in, “considering they’ve been reminding us of that for, oh, literally our entire lives. Usually with the _chair_ ,” she adds with a hiss and Lucky isn’t alone in flinching.

“Why, did you have any better suggestions for what we could be doing?” Razor shoots a scowl over his shoulder at her.

“What if we stopped?” The words tumble from Lucky’s mouth like stones.

Everyone turns and looks at him, even Razor.

“Stopped _what_?” Razor asks, bitterly. “Stopped chasing the target? Stopped obeying orders? Stopped serving the Empire? We don’t _get_ to stop. Death Troopers don’t get to just _stop_.”

“You live a Death Trooper or you die a Death Trooper.” Veero recites the old idiom with an unpleasant twist to his lips.

“That’s enough,” Dubs cuts in, firm. He’s been quiet until now. “At this point--” he heaves a deep breath. “At this point all questions are valid. But let’s keep our heads down and really think things over. Anything we do, we do _as a team_. Just like we always have. Understood?”

And just like that, the tension in the room dissipates. “Understood,” Razor agrees, and the dark look in his eyes is gone. Lucky and Sevy both nod along, and Veero watches it all with wide eyes, datapad forgotten.

\--

HOLDING PATTERN

The Mandalorian seems to have a certain pattern he operates by, one that Blue Team gets used to over the following few weeks. He finds some podunk low-pop planet to land on, works assorted jobs that vary wildly in both profitability and savoriness, eventually draws some sort of violent attention, and then skips town to the next hick system, leaving a growing body count in his wake.

Meanwhile, Blue Team usually parks their shuttle in orbit and waits for the blood to spill. Their ship has strong stealth capabilities, and good espionage equipment, so Veero can usually eavesdrop on most surface chatter to keep his ear on things. Razor has a real knack for spotting the Mandalorian’s ship on the surface, as well--though it helps that the Mandalorian is pretty consistent in where he likes to park and hide his ship: just outside of city limits and with, at most, a camo wrap tugged over the top.

Then, once he’s cleared each system, the team goes down to the surface, where they metaphorically kick over a few rocks to make it look like they are properly tracking the Mandalorian, scrape together a progress report for Gideon, then take off and follow along to the next planet. 

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Lucky isn’t sure what the Mandalorian’s overall plan is, or at this point if he even _has_ a big plan. Surely he isn’t going to just live a life on the run?

All the while, on their team shuttle, the conversation continues, interspersed between all the waiting and watching and training.

\--

“I’m just saying,” Veero mumbles to Lucky as they clean weapons together at the table in the shuttle armory. He holds a scope up to one eye, fiddles with a dial, squints; then with a scowl he tugs his toolbox closer and starts dismantling the lens. “It’s not even being disloyal, that’s all I’m saying.’

Lucky sighs and rubs the back of his hand across his brow, accidentally smearing a bit of grease around. “I doubt any of the Moffs left will agree with you.” He flicks his thumb to give the rotary barrels of his partially assembled Z-6SR cannon a spin; the glide is perfect.

“Yeah, but we didn’t swear any oaths to any Moffs,” Veero argues, sticking his tongue between his teeth as he focuses on loosening a tiny screw. “We swore them to the Emperor, and he’s _dead_. No Emperor, no Empire. It’s in the definition.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Lucky points out without any real heat. He’s finished reassembling the cannon and stands to hang it up in the heavy weapons cabinet. He pulls another identical one out from beside it and turns the barrels--there’s a slight gritty catch. He drops back down at the table with it and grabs the bottle of gun oil again.

“What is it _was_ that simple?” Veero asks mulishly, and Lucky pauses to look at him. The other man is still focused on the scope in front of him, a tiny scrub brush in hand as he works over the lenses, his dark curls falling into his eyes. He’s almost six and a half feet tall, he’s a trained and hardened killer that’s been on their team for the better part of a decade, and he’s one of the best with a knife that Lucky has ever known; but he still sometimes seems very young to Lucky.

This is one of those times.

“Does it make a difference?” Lucky asks in return. “It’s not like they would just let us go either way.” It doesn’t matter if _he_ thinks they are being disloyal or not; it’s the people at the other end of the leash who matter.

Veero looks up through the curtain of his hair to meet Lucky’s eyes. “Do you really think they could stop us?”

And, well.

That’s the question, isn’t it.

\--

A few days later, Lucky is roused from his sleep rotation by the sound of his own name. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes, not sure if he wants to commit just yet to fully waking up; suffering through little bunk conversations is just part of life when you share such close quarters with four other people.

“Lucky thinks they don’t have the facilities anymore. That they all got destroyed after Jakku. I mean, with what happened with Scarif...” It’s Sevy, her back pressed against his in the bed as she murmurs to someone on her other side.

“We can’t assume that.” Dubs’s voice whispers back. “It might just be logistically difficult now, so they aren’t doing routine rounds, only corrective ones. If we draw their attention…”

“It’s been _years_ , Dubs,” Sevy points out, soft.

“I know.” Lucky can feel the mattress move as Dubs shifts. “I just don’t want to see any of us back in the chair. It’s my job to keep everyone safe.”

“You’re a good captain, old man,” Sevy mumbles, muffled. That seems to be the end of the soft conversation, and Lucky drifts back off to full sleep between one breath and the next.

\--

Later in the week, Lucky is in the shuttle galley, busy losing a battle against a particularly vile meal ration, when the edge of a conversation catches his ears. Razor and Dubs are in the cockpit above him, and their voices drift down from the open ladder.

“I just don’t even know where we could go,” Razor is saying. “None of us have any family anymore, do we?”

“Veero does,” Dubs says, “but it’s bad blood there. For the rest of us, well...I have no idea about myself but I can probably guess.”

“Well, my family is all dead, and I think it’s the same for the twins,” Razor replies. He’s referring to Sevy and Lucky--he’s the only one that still does that sometimes, calls them ‘twins’. They aren’t related, and don’t even look anything alike, but it’s a holdover from that lifetime ago when they were the team rookies together, back when Guppy was still on the team and alive; back before they gained and lost Rho and then N83; years before Veero joined them.

This whole situation must have him feeling some sort of way if he’s thinking of Lucky and Sevy like they are the team babies again.

“You mean besides their fifty kids,” Dubs points out and they both share a small laugh. Down below and unseen, Lucky rolls his eyes. “I don’t think it matters much, though,” Dubs continues. “There’s a lot of galaxy out there, and if we stuck together…”

“Yeah,” Razor agrees, soft. “We’d do alright.”

\--

Those are just a handful of the little conversations and moments that pass around the shuttle as the momentum builds. They aren’t at a tipping point yet, but Lucky thinks it will happen soon. For now, though, it’s just another part of their routine.

Shadow the Mandalorian. Circle each planet until he leaves. Go count the bodies he’s left behind. Discuss treason around the dinner table.

You know, the usual Death Trooper things.

\--

The pattern holds for a few more weeks and three more planets before things change again. Lucky’s first notice of this is when he gets jarred awake mid sleep rotation via a boot to the ribs.

“Up and at ‘em, boys,” Sevy cajoles. She’s turned the overhead lights on, and is currently prodding Lucky with a sharp toe. “Dubs wants us all up top, we’ve got news.”

Lucky blinks blearily up at her, then sighs. Veero is currently plastered to his back, and from the sound of his disgruntled mumbles into Lucky’s neck, he’s no happier to be awake. Orders are orders, though, so he peels himself free and rolls to his feet.

“Do we--” Lucky interrupts himself with a yawn, “--do we need gear?”

“No, intel only,” Sevy tells him, before turning her attention towards Veero, so Lucky just scratches at his belly and meanders up to the cockpit in only the undershirt and plain drawstring pants he was wearing to sleep in. If he’s lucky enough, he might get to go right back to bed once the meeting is done. It can get a little chilly wandering the shuttle barefoot, but he’s never really minded that.

Dubs and Razor are both already seated in the cockpit, so Lucky drops into the empty seat and pulls his feet up under him, giving them both a tired nod. Dubs nods back, attention mostly on a datapad in hand, but Razor takes one look at him and snorts.

“Nice hair,” the pilot says with a laugh. 

Lucky pats curiously at his head--a lot of it does seem to be going rather sideways. He gives Razor a shrug; it’s not like they have any mirrors on the shuttle, after all.

Veero stumbles in a second later, bodily shoved up the ladder by Sevy. He’s got what looks like the entire set of bedding wrapped around him, making him resemble a bunk with legs more than a Death Trooper. He slumps down on the floor by Dubs, and Sevy comes to shove Lucky half off of his chair so that she can share the seat with him.

“Alright, team, we’ve got a mission update.” Dubs looks faintly annoyed, which is never a good sign. “Additional resources have been allocated to our target, so this is now a joint mission.”

Lucky groans, accompanied by Sevy’s angry hissing and the unhappy whine emitting from the pile of blankets formerly known as Veero. That’s bad luck.

“Who is it?” Sevy asks, scowling.

“Commander Derge Thilleon, Imperial Army,” Dubs says. “We haven’t worked with him before, so I’m not familiar with his background or expertise.”

“I’ll look into things,” Veero offers, peeking out from his blankets. 

Dubs nods at him. “Thilleon is in command of a _Arquitens_ -class command cruiser with two platoons of Storm Troopers. In addition, he’s also accompanied by another Death Trooper squad.”

That draws much more interest from everyone; it’s been ages since they’ve had joint work with another team.

“Who is it? Do we know?” Sevy asks, curious.

Dubs shakes his head. “Intel didn’t include that, but I think it’s an escort team, not another strike team.” 

Lucky is vaguely disappointed by that--the strike teams never got to know each other all that closely, but there were at least a few familiar faces out there he wouldn’t have minded seeing again, even if it would throw a wrench in whatever slow-motion mutiny they had going on. 

It was Death Troopers that hunted down wayward Death Troopers, after all.

“Anyways, per mission orders,” Dubs continues with an eye roll, “Thilleon has intel that suggests the target is at the Marowa system, and we are to travel post-haste to meet him there in two days.”

“Dunno, cap’n, that might be cutting it close,” Razor drawls sarcastically, leaning back in his pilot’s seat and looking pointedly up.

Lucky follows his gaze out the viewport-windows. Visible far up above them is the planet they have been in high orbit around for most of the last week: Marowa.

They all share a small laugh at Thilleon’s expense.

“That’s all for now,” Dubs says. “I’ll have more for us closer to rendezvous time.”

“You didn’t have to wake us up just for this,” Veero whines at him, pulling himself to his feet.

“I didn’t want to repeat myself.” Dubs briefly tugs on a lock of Veero’s hair as he straightens upright. “Careful your hair isn’t getting too long. If it doesn’t fit under the helmet I’m going to have to make you cut it.”

“It’ll fit,” Veero promises. He snags Lucky’s elbow and starts pulling him towards the ladder down, blanket trailing behind him. “Come on Lucky, let’s go back to bed.”

Razor might hate sharing a bed, but Veero has the opposite problem and can’t sleep alone. Lucky isn’t going to pass up an opportunity to get more sleep in, though, so he’s not complaining. 

He doesn’t fall back asleep as quickly as Veero, however. Only two days and then the current status quo is going to get upset, and that troubles him enough to keep sleep at bay. He chews a lip in thought while he listens to Veero snore; then again, it’s been a bit quiet, the Mandalorian is overdue to, oh, get in a bar fight or piss off some local sheriff or something, maybe he will murder his way off planet before Thilleon’s forces can arrive.

Who knows, maybe they will get lucky.

\--

COOPERATION

They don’t get lucky.

The Mandalorian is still on Marowa when Thilleon’s forces arrive in the system, and Commander Thilleon himself turns out to be a real piece of work, a fanatic of the old type common before the fall of the Empire.

He has a high opinion of himself, demanding for Blue Team to brief in person once his cruiser has arrived in the system, and Lucky is once again reminded of how much things have changed in the last few years.

Teams like theirs are deep operations strike teams. They are designed to function with minimal oversight and input, meant to execute high-value missions requiring specialist tactics, and are intended to be largely autonomous and self-sufficient. They have their own shuttle, their own routines, their own training; they are a weapon that simply needs to be aimed.

But Thilleon, much like Gideon, seems intent on treating them as if they are just another unit of his personal Storm Troopers, albeit one with more battle capability. Lucky can tell the man was promoted to an officer position out of the general trooper ranks himself, just by how he automatically expects them to fall into obedience and conformity, when he demands they join up with his forces.

It’s just such a _waste_.

Lucky can crack open any safehouse, and single-handedly kill a target’s entire bodyguard team once inside. Sevy can take out a target from three clicks away in the middle of a hurricane, and make it look easy. Razor can fly any ship, and also slice a path of destruction through a battlefield armed with only a blaster and a speeder bike. Veero can find out a target’s entire life story with either half an hour of network access, or just ten minutes with a scalpel and an interrogation chair. Dubs can orchestrate planetary regime changes in his sleep, and keep the rest of them all alive through just about anything.

And here they are, for the second time in as many months, getting treated like common grunts. It _rankles_.

Thilleon, much like Gideon, doesn’t seem to realize he got in a position of power probably solely due to a warm-body promotion to fill a power vacuum left by all the better options dying. Unlike Gideon, he doesn’t show much in the way of redeeming competency, which becomes obvious within minutes arriving on board his cruiser.

Command cruisers are nowhere near the scale of a star destroyer, so it doesn’t have any hangars, but it does support external docking for a small number of shuttles or starfighters. There aren’t any TIE variants visible, but there are a pair of troop drop-ships and another black shuttle that must belong to the other Death Trooper squad--though its a simple _Lambda_ -class transport model, not like the specialty _Delta_ -class shuttle Blue Team flies.

Once on board, the team is escorted directly to an intel briefing--one that Thilleon seems determined to make sure is a void of intelligence as possible.

DT-W22 and DT-V08 had put together a carefully curated set of information about the Mandalorian’s habits and patterns, and Thilleon steamrolls right through it before announcing his plan of action: once the sun rises on the settlement the Mandalorian is currently inhabiting, they will all be surrounding and then apprehending him, as well as the asset he is presumably carrying.

He completely fails to integrate any of V08’s intel into his plans.

DT-L13 tries to cover his observations of the Mandalorian’s combat capabilities--the sort of things that it’s important to cover before, you know, engaging with said enemy in _combat_ \--but Thilleon blows it off.

Instead, Thilleon reiterates his plan of attack, and then that’s it.

Once again, a waste.

A small bit of luck is that Thilleon’s men are taking their pre-battle meal right after the meeting, and Blue Team is directed to join in. L13 knows it’s just going to be more military rations, but it’ll at least be _different_ rations, and that’s almost enough to make it all worth it.

Thilleon’s Death Troopers have their own separate galley, and L13 leads the rest of his team--sans W22 who has captain responsibilities--there, following the directions on his HUD to reach it. Technically an Imperial cruiser isn’t enemy territory, so he doesn’t actually _need_ to take point, but old habits die hard.

The other team is already there, helmets off and eating, and they give Blue Team nods as they arrive. There are twice as many of them--escort teams are usually eight man squads as opposed to the five man strike teams.

“How’s the chow?” V08 calls to them as he passes by.

One of them snorts. DT-910, according to L13’s HUD. “It’s brown,” he answers. “But hey, brown goes down.”

“Works for me!” V08 returns cheerfully.

L13 collects his tray. It _is_ rather brown, but the texture looks decent. Barely gelatinous at all. He plops down at the long table and pulls off his helmet, placing it in front of him, then picks up his fork and digs in. Across from him, Veero does the same, hair spilling free.

“You guys ever engaged a Mandalorian before?” Lucky asks the other team around a mouthful of food. Each team has claimed one end of the table, but it’s not a huge space, so the conversation is easy enough to carry.

Socializing helmets-off with a few new faces is almost as nice an opportunity as new food.

“No, but it shouldn’t be that much trouble, right?” the other team’s captain--identifiable as such by his pauldron--answers back.

Lucky gives him a shrug. “I mean, I wouldn’t underestimate the target. We’ve been following his trail for a few weeks, he’s got a good body count built up.”

A blond trooper on the other team snorts. “I thought you were supposed to be Death Troopers. You’re scared of a single target?”

Nevermind, Lucky hates socializing.

“It’s not about being scared, it’s about not being stupid,” Veero puts in, rolling his eyes.

“You calling me stupid?” Blondie bristles, and Lucky is tempted to put his helmet back on so he can get this chucklefuck’s designation from the HUD. Why is there always the one idiot with a chip on their shoulder in every unit? This is why he’s glad he was never a generalist.

“Hey, you said it, not me,” Veero shoots him a grin, then shovels another forkful of brown ration into his mouth.

Razor drops down next to Lucky, but stays quiet. No surprises there; he likes socializing with strangers about as much as he likes cuddling, which is to say, not at all. Then Sevy sets down by Veero, which derails the pissing contest. Or rather, to be specific: Sevy removing her helmet derails it, causing a stir among the other team.

“Oh shit!” says one of the other troopers. “A woman? Damn!”

“I wish we had one of them around!” jokes one of the others, elbowing his team mate next to him. “It’d be nice to have something to look at for a change!”

Blue team collectively stills and trade glances around. Sevy looks completely empty, her grey eyes blank. It’s how she looks right before she kills people.

“Have you never seen a woman before?” Lucky asks the other team, confused. From the way some of them react, shooting him offended glares and a muttered curse, they take his question as an insult, but he meant it as an honest question. Why are they being so weird?

Men might make up the majority, but it’s not like female Death Troopers are rare, especially among the specialists. More than half the snipers were women, for instance, as well as a good third of the pilots, for that matter. Then again, they haven’t been teamed up with any other specialists since...Lucky couldn’t actually remember. Huh.

“No, sorry,” apologizes one of the troopers who apparently has a little more tact that the rest of his team. “It’s just, I didn’t think many females could meet the physical standards to be a Death Trooper. But you’re very tall,” he adds to Sevy with a smile--one that she doesn’t return.

That’s a weird thing to say. _Of course_ Sevy met the physical standards; the Empire had been augmenting her growth from a young age to ensure it. That’s how it _worked_.

Blue Team again silently glances at each other, and Lucky knew they were all thinking the same thing. They knew the spec ops teams were different from the escort teams but they didn’t think they were _that_ different. What’s up with these guys?

Dubs walks into the galley at that moment, helmet under his arm, and then pauses, looking over the group. He’s missed the exchange, but he can clearly read the body language on the rest of the team and sees the tension. Then Dubs sighs and starts walking again.

“Here,” he says to Veero, handing him a datapad on his way to the back of the room where the food waits. “Dump and transfer info.”

Veero snatches it from him, other team of troopers clearly already forgotten. Any time their shuttle meets up with a carrier or destroyer, they always get as much of a supply transfer as possible, plus whatever intel they can manage. Dubs as captain might handle arranging the transfer of both physical and digital goods, but they fall under Veero’s domain.

“Whatcha got there?” It’s Blondie again, leaning over to try and tilt the datapad to read off of it.

He only makes it partway. Then his reaching arm is pinned down, one of the cheap cutlery knives from their meal jammed through his sleeve down into the table, stabbed with enough force to embed it in the table and leave it quivering.

Veero is already turning back to his datapad. “Don’t touch that,” he mumbles at the blond man, already buried in his work again.

“What the fuck?” Blondie yelps, yanking the knife free. “Are you _insane_?”

Veero ignores him. The other trooper’s fear is turning to embarrassed anger now.

“If you want to play with knives, I can show you some knives,” Blondie threatens. Veero still doesn’t look up from his datapad.

Lucky goes completely still, sliding his eyes to the side to closely watch the scene play out. Across from him, Sevy has done the same, and he can see in his peripheral vision the way Razor’s hand is frozen in mid-air over his fork.

The other Death Troopers are all shifting uncomfortably as they spectate as well. Lucky suspects Blondie might be a regular hothead, since none of them look surprised, but none of them are putting a stop to it, including their captain.

That’s fine. Lucky can do his job for him.

“Non-standard haircut, too.” Blondie flicks the tip of the dinner knife through the end of one of Veero’s curls. He doesn’t seem to be aware of the mortal danger he is in, because he keeps picking at Veero. “How about I take that off for you? Plus maybe a little extra?”

Lucky glances at Sevy; her eyes flicker to his then back to the target and he knows they are in agreement. He will take point; as soon as the target crosses the line, Lucky will be on him, and Sevy will have his back.

A firm hand drops onto Lucky’s shoulder, holding him in place. “Blue team, stand down,” Dubs says with a sigh, back from grabbing his food.

Blondie suddenly seems to notice the tension in the room, the silence, the stillness, the way three pairs of eyes are fixed on him, watching his every move. He flushes and doubles down.

“You freaks got problems too?” he blusters, but his grip on the silverware is a bit less steady now. Veero still hasn’t so much as glanced at him.

Dubs rolls his head to stare down the other team’s captain. “Can you please control your idiot?”

The captain scowls at him. “What, only your team is allowed to threaten people with knives?”

Dubs lifts his hand from Lucky’s shoulder and sets the ration tray in his other hand gently down on the table by Razor. He circles the table, slow and deliberate, and stops by the other team captain. The captain scrambles to his feet, looking ready for a fight, but Dubs just leans in very close.

“Why don’t you worry about your own team,” he suggests, voice very soft, “and I’ll take care of mine.”

“Is that--are you _threatening_ me?”

“Yes,” answers Dubs, simply. He turns his back on the other captain. “Blue Team, we disembark in twenty, so eat up.”

They finish the meal in a very frosty silence.

\--

It’s just past mid-day when DT-L13 enters the main trade hub on Marowa, helping establish a perimeter as part of Commander Thilleon’s plan to capture the Mandalorian.

It’s a medium sized settlement, enough that two teams of Death Troopers and a couple of platoons of regular Storm Troopers isn’t enough to make a truly effective perimeter--especially in this corner of the galaxy, where the locals won’t be any friend to the Empire. His team knows the meaning of stealth, but the rest of the Imperial forces don’t seem to have even a passing familiarity with the concept, so before their boots even hit the ground the whole damn planet must be aware of their presence.

The smarter plan would have been to use a single team to flush the Mandalorian out and then brought the rest of the forces down as a hammer one he showed his head. L13 isn’t going to start voicing strategy suggestions, though, and anyways he doubts Thilleon would be interested in listening to them, even if he did.

That’s good, though. He’s already established that he doesn’t actually want to bring in the asset...or the target, for that matter.

His HUD lights up with alerts as a pair of troopers go down, and it’s not too far from him. He starts to make his way over, ready to insert himself into any situation, when another pair falls, and then a fifth trooper only minutes later.

The comms are cluttered with chatter as Thilleon’s men map the pattern, and his HUD map lights up with sharp lines drawn.

“Here is the path the target is taking, units converge here and here--” come the broad orders, and L13 just rolls his eyes.

He’s not an idiot, he knows a false trail when he sees one. The Mandalorian is too skilled to get caught by troopers and get forced into killing his way through the perimeter, it’s obviously deliberate. If only Thilleon had listened to L13’s intel briefing. Oh well, his loss. 

L13 ignores the troop movement orders and goes a different way--not the complete opposite direction, because that’s not how these things work, but rather he splits the difference in the direction towards the Mandalorian’s ship, working off a hunch that’s four-fifths common sense and one-fifth probably the Force.

He knows he’s on the money when he feels the first brush against his mind.

L13 ducks into a narrow twisting alleyway, unseen, and steps carefully through the shadows, senses alert. He’s perfectly aware the Mandalorian will kill him without hesitation, if given the chance, so it’s probably best to not give him that chance.

In all honesty, he’s not entirely sure why he’s here in the first place. The Mandalorian is capable of extracting himself from this trap, and he could help run interference at a distance without making contact. There’s no need for him to try to find the target or the asset, to see them in person again.

His feet don’t stop moving. He can be honest with himself; he does want to see the asset again. 

He does want to see the target again.

A soft coo interrupts his thoughts and L13 grins beneath his helmet. He carefully scans the dim alley with his pulse emitter visual sensors and catches sight of a large dark eye and a wide ear peeking out from behind a barrel.

“Hello again, little one,” L13 calls softly to it, voice scrambler turned off. 

The little head emerges further out from hiding, along with a questioning noise.

“You remember me, right?” L13 asks, and he presses his hand to his chest to make his kyber crystal warm briefly.

The child giggles and then shyly creeps out from its hiding spot. L13 kneels down and holds out a black-gloved hand, and the child carefully takes it, growing more animated and excited by the second. It starts babbling at L13, a series of noises that don’t sound like any language apart from the nonsense language all humanoid babies seem to share.

“Oh yeah? Is that so?” L13 responds, as if it was a coherent intel report from the child, and not just gibberish.

The child chatters at him a bit longer, then tugs at his hand. When L13 obligingly leans closer, the child drops it and lifts his arms up instead, asking to be held. Cute. L13 indulges the child and scoops it up, holding it as gently as he can manage against the hard black plating of his armor. It presses its face against his chest and giggles, muffled.

L13 feels a bit warm in the chest, and he’s not sure he can entirely blame the kyber crystal.

“So, kid, where’s your dad?” L13 asks it, not expecting an answer. “Did you sneak away? Or did he leave you behind while he went to draw fire away?”

The child giggles, looking mischievous.

“If he left you behind to be safe, he probably told you to hide from troopers. Like me.” L13 tickles the child a little in emphasis, drawing more giggling. “Lucky for you, I happen to have a soft spot for little troublemakers.”

L13 takes a moment to pay attention to his HUD readouts. The Mandalorian hasn’t killed any more troopers yet, and the responding reinforcements to his previous spotted location haven’t encountered him again. Is he clearing the way further? Or possibly coming back for the child? L13 is the only Imperial in the immediate vicinity, but there’s a squad of regular Storm Troopers that will be pathing through the area in a just few minutes. 

L13 decides he can at least help keep the child safe until the Mandalorian turns back up, and goes ahead and carries him a couple of streets over. Between his HUD and his training, it’s cake to stay out of sight, and he re-shelters with the child in another narrow alleyway.

A few minutes pass while L13 considers where to go from here; he isn’t exactly sure what to do with the child. For all that he and S47 have speculated about their multitude of hypothetical offspring, he hasn’t interacted with very many actual children in his life.

Hopefully he can find the Mandalorian soon and hand it off, before it needs, like, feeding. Or changing.

There’s the sound of a blaster whirring up behind him.

“Put the child down,” says a familiar steely voice. It’s the Mandalorian. Well, that’s one problem solved; luck must be on his side right now.

“Please don’t shoot me,” L13 says, sighing at himself for getting caught out. He’s definitely lucky the Mandalorian isn’t in a shoot-first kind of mood. “We’ve been over this.” He turns around to face the Mandalorian head on.

The other man is just scant feet behind him, and there’s a surprised air to him, despite the lack of visible expression. “It’s you again,” he says after a brief pause, not sounding entirely pleased, but he does lower the blaster, so that’s probably a net win.

L13 takes the chance to properly evaluate the target. He’s a few inches shorter than L13, which isn’t a surprise given his own artificially boosted growth, but he’s still tall by most standards. This close, L13 can see how well built the man is under his armor, how solid his stance is, how well the Beskar suits him. The Mandalorian’s voice has to pass through the modulator of his helmet and then the sound processors of L13’s own, but there’s still a nice timbre to it, and L13 can’t tell due to his helmet’s filters, but he imagines the other man probably smells like leather and gun oil.

L13 blinks. Wait, what?

The child in his arms pats against his chest plate, right over his kyber crystal, and it derails the trooper’s train of thought. He glances down; there’s an impressive amount of drool on his rifle strap where the child has been gnawing on it. He sighs. Gross. Cute, but gross.

“Here,” he says, holding the child out, a hand under each armpit. The Mandalorian holsters his blaster so he can take it from him, seeming a bit bemused about the whole situation. “It’s not just my team here, so you should get a move on. I can’t guarantee your escape this time.”

The Mandalorian pauses again. He does that an awful lot. “Why do you keep helping us?”

L13 shrugs. “It’s a cute kid. I like it a lot better than I like Moff Gideon.” 

He means it as a flippant non-answer, but the Mandalorian jerks like it startles him.

“Moff Gideon?” he repeats, sharp.

L13 nods slowly, a bit surprised; did the man not know who was even chasing him?

The child is reaching back towards L13, and he playfully pokes its hand with a black-gloved finger, making it giggle.

“Have you ever considered putting a leash on it?” he suggests.

The Mandalorian sighs, long and heavily. “The thought has crossed my mind.”

Comm chatter in L13’s ear lets him know that their time is getting short. The trooper holds his hand up to pause the conversation, and he quickly goes through his HUD readouts looking for options. “Here, if you go north two blocks, there’s a gap in the perimeter, and half a click north-northwest is entry to the city catacombs. Go due west underground and you should be able to find a surface exit near your ship.”

The Mandalorian is silent as he regards L13 for a long moment. “I can’t repay you for this,” he warns, as if L13 might be in it for some monetary reward.

“Just don’t let us catch you again,” L13 suggests. “That’s repayment enough.”

The Mandalorian nods briskly, then turns and goes. Before he leaves view, L13 catches sight of a little green face peering back over his shoulder, one three-clawed hand waving goodbye. He wiggles his fingers in return. What a cute kid.

\--

ESCAPE VELOCITY

Thilleon’s forces don’t notice the Mandalorian slipping the trap, and they don’t notice his ship breaking from atmo either. It’s not until he’s jumped to hyperspace that the star cruiser in orbit catches sight of his ship’s fading tail lights and realizes he’s escaped.

Thilleon is downright pissed at this turn of developments. DT-L13 wishes there was a better way of putting it, but Thilleon’s anger is nearly comical, and the hasty executions he puts on for a few particularly uncooperative citizens of Marowa are anything but professional. He’s trying desperately to blame anything but his own flawed planning, and L13 is, yet again, reminded just how far the Empire has fallen.

Blue Team loads up and follows Thilleon’s cruiser back into the stars. They stay on their shuttle, Dubs turning down several demands to dock with the cruiser, declining them as if they were requests and not orders. It’s honestly a bit impressive and Lucky is curious how far Thilleon will let it go before his need for obedience overcomes his common sense.

In the meantime, Lucky tells them about child again.

“You’re lucky you didn’t get shot,” Dubs points out, sounding tired. He realizes his mistake a second too late and winces preemptively.

“You can just call me ‘Lucky’ for short,” Lucky says with a grin and a wink, before automatically ducking Sevy’s backhand. It’s dangerous to make puns when seated next to her in the cramped space of the galley--there’s minimal room for evasive maneuvers. “Anyways, he wasn’t going to shoot me while I was holding his kid.”

“I felt it this time,” Razor cuts in, looking up from his food, and Lucky blinks at him, startled. “In the Force,” he clarifies.

“You were, what, two clicks south of Lucky?” Veero asks. Razor nods. “Hmm, that’s pretty far away to pick it up. Maybe Lucky _is_ right about the Force-sensitivity of the asset.”

“What, are you saying I’m lying?” Lucky asks, vaguely offended.

Veero snorts. “No, just that you could be wrong.”

“Not like that’s uncommon,” Sevy helpfully adds, and Lucky sinks down into a sulk, shoveling some rations into his mouth and chewing sullenly. No fair, he’s getting ganged up on.

There’s a chime from the cockpit and Razor scowls. “Wanna bet that’s another order to dock?”

“Sucker’s bet.” Sevy rolls her eyes. “Why do they want us on board so badly?”

“You mean you _don’t_ want to go hang out with Thilleon’s discount Death Troopers some more?” Veero asks with a wry grin.

Razor just sighs and pushes his chair back from the table. “I’ll be right back. Don’t touch my berries. I mean it.”

“No one’s gonna steal your nasty berries,” Lucky assures him as he disappears up the cockpit ladder, even though history has proven before that Veero just might.

But Veero is in a behaving mood it seems, because he sticks to his own ‘dessert’. “What was up with those guys, anyways?”

Dubs shrugs. “Who knows? With Scarif gone, maybe the escort squads get their training on Lothal now.”

Lucky snorts. “That would explain a lot.” Lothal wasn’t exactly known for its... _quality_ Imperial academies.

“Well, look at it this way,” Sevy suggests, “those guys will never be able to hunt us down.”

The tension in the room ratchets up a little at the implications of that statement.

“Hypothetically speaking, of course,” Sevy belatedly adds on, completely insincere.

“Of course,” Dubs echoes, blandly. “Hypothetically.”

“I mean, does Gideon even have any other Death Trooper teams he can call in to chase us?” Sevy asks. She pauses a beat. “ _Hypothetically_.”

“If it’s just them, I’m not worried,” Veero snorts. “I doubt they could find their own assholes with two hands and a flashlight.”

Lucky shoots him a scowl; that’s lovely imagery for during mealtime. 

Razor drops back down into the galley. “Called it. Message was orders to dock for in-person intel assessment.”

“What did you tell them?” Dubs asks, not sounding overly concerned. Technically, Dubs is the one who should be responding to those sorts of orders, but Razor knows how to handle the small fry stuff just fine.

Razor grins at him. “Simple. ‘Request acknowledged’.” He digs into his rehydrated berries with gusto while the rest of them share a laugh. 

Lucky is sure that must be driving Thilleon mad, but he’s not technically their superior officer for the joint venture, so their cooperation only extends as far as is mission-relevant. Since he’s already proven what a waste of time his ‘intel sessions’ are, that’s pretty much carte blanche to ignore him.

“Anyways, what did I miss while I was up there?” Razor asks.

“Oh, not much,” Veero says in an overly-casual tone. “We were just discussing how the other Death Trooper squad is far too incompetent to catch us once we finally decide to desert this joke of an Imperial remnant.”

Lucky chokes on his rations. Wow, Veero isn’t even going to dance around it at all, is he? There’s a corner of Lucky’s mind in full-blown panic mode without the buffer of plausible deniability, repeating _obey-loyalty-report-control-serve_ like a mantra, but he stuffs it back down.

 _You’re safe!_ he snaps at himself. _Veero’s safe!_ The Empire can’t reach them here, not anymore. He has to believe that. Pulse dropping under control, he peeks around at the others. Veero looks defiantly unbothered in a way that betrays his true feelings, Dubs looks similarly conflicted to how Lucky feels, and Sevy is wearing her empty sniper eyes again.

Razor, surprisingly, looks unphased. He chews his darkberries contemplatively for a moment before nodding.

“Okay. I’m in,” Razor says unceremoniously.

Lucky chokes again, and Sevy gives his back a few thumps, though she looks a bit shocked herself. They all do, really.

“You mean it?” Veero gapes. “Wow, I thought you would be the last one of us on board.”

Lucky knows what Veero means. Razor isn’t a fanatic, exactly, but he’s always cared just a little bit more than the rest of them--or maybe cared just a little _less_ , is the better way to put it. Then again, he does tend to keep his cards close to his chest.

Razor shrugs, looking a little uncomfortable now. “I’ve been having dreams. There’s no future here. I don’t know where else we can go, but I’m ready to find out.”

He means Force visions. He gets them more than the rest of them, poor guy. Lucky isn’t sure that’s a good enough reason to vote for treason, but who is he to argue?

“Sevy? Lucky?” Dubs looks at them both in turn, expression more serious as Lucky has ever seen it. “Have you made any decisions?”

Sevy turns to Lucky. Her grey eyes could burn holes in him. “I’m in if you’re in.”

Lucky closes his eyes and pulls in a deep breath. The Force is telling him one thing and one thing only. _There’s no going back._

He opens his eyes. “Let’s do it.”

“Is this happening? Are we really doing this?” Veero is starting to grin, disbelieving.

Dubs gives him a small, tight smile. “It sounds like we are all in agreement, so. Yes. We are really doing this.”

Lucky’s pulse is thundering in his ears. It feels so sudden; but at the same time, it’s been a long time coming. Maybe even as far back as Yavin. Looking at it that way, maybe this was inevitable.

“What now, though?” Sevy asks. “What do we even _do_?”

“That’s a good question.” Dubs frowns in thought. “For the moment, nothing.”

Razor nods. “We should wait for a good moment to cut and run, not give ourselves away too early.”

“I want to finish this mission out,” Lucky tells them. “I want to make sure it fails, I don’t want the asset going to Gideon.”

“Or the target?” Sevy teases him with a light elbow nudge, and he gives her a petulant look. Then she gets more serious. “But I’m behind you on that. Afterwards, though--what are we going to do?”

“There are other Empire remnants out there,” suggests Razor, but Lucky can tell his heart isn’t in it. “Or I suppose we could always sell our skills as mercenaries?”

Dubs tilts his head. “A lot will depend on how clean of a break we can make...and what the political picture is for the rest of the galaxy. We would need clean identification to work in Republic controlled space…”

“I can handle that,” Veero promises.

“We still need a way to earn a living,” Sevy points out. “Unless you want to go be farmers on some dirtball backwater planet?”

Veero raises a hand. “Is now a good time to tell you all that I’ve been embezzling team funds for years? We’ve got credits saved up we can use.”

Everyone stares at him.

“What? I’m not stupid. I knew something like this was going to happen eventually, so, y’know. I prepared.” He flips his curls.

There’s another moment of silence as they all take that in, and then Razor bursts out laughing.

“Veero, you _little shit_ ,” he cackles, and then everyone else is laughing too.

It takes Lucky a moment to place a name to the impossibly light feeling in his chest, but he thinks if he had to pick, he would call it hope.

Dubs has his face buried in his hands. “We used to be so respectable,” he says, barely intelligible through his muffled laughter. “Where did we go wrong?”

“I think you mean, where did we go _right_?” Sevy points out, jostling him. “Anyways, it wasn’t us that changed, it was the Empire around us.”

Lucky doesn’t think she’s exactly right about that, but he’s not going to argue. Not when her eyes are bright, not when Dubs looks less tired than he’s ever seen him, not when Razor is warm and smiling.

“For real, though,” Veero says, looking very proud of himself. “A lot of it is already lined up. We can go dark pretty easily, I’ve got a mix of physical credits and a couple of accounts we can access, and we are already practically ghosts, from an intel standpoint. Making fresh idents will be a breeze.”

Razor snorts. “Almost like real people, huh?”

“Almost,” Sevy agrees. “Wait, does that mean we need names? Like, real ones?”

“Yeah, let me know what you want, I can get started right away.” Veero is already reaching for his datapad, energized. “I’d recommend against using your old family names, but if you have a given name you want to go back to, that should be safe enough.”

That sobers Lucky up a little. He’s been DT-L13 so long, he’s not sure he knows how to be anyone else. Everyone else quiets down as well.

“I think my name was Cole?” Sevy says, uncertainly. She looks at Lucky, and he gives her a shrug. He remembers they were at the academy together, but the little details escape him. Like their own names.

“That sounds about right?” he offers. “I’m pretty sure my name was Corin.” It feels right, anyways.

“It’s nice to meet you, Corin,” Sevy says with a wry smirk. “I might just stick with Sevy, for now.”

“Let’s go with Corin,” Lucky tells Veero, who nods and makes a note on his datapad. “Though it’s hard to remember for sure...” he trails off. Even the shallowest reconditioning protocol put emphasis on fulfilling one’s designation and rank, and that came with a cost.

“I remember my old name,” Veero says. It’s not really a surprise, since he’s the youngest on the team. He had probably only been sent for reconditioning a handful of times before the Empire fell. “But it sucked. I’m staying Veero.”

“My name was Luka. _Is_ Luka,” Razor says firmly. Then, softer, “I kept...I have a letter from my sister. It’s on there.”

They all look at Dubs. He shrugs helplessly at them. He’s been a Death Trooper years longer than all of them--for all that he doesn’t look a day older--and the rounds in the chair add up. 

“We’ll pick something out for you, old man,” Sevy promises him, which is honestly really more of a threat than a favor.

“Thanks,” Dubs says, dry.

“I’ll get us fresh chain codes made up while we wait for a good opportunity to run,” Veero says, already tapping away. “Then all we need to worry about are the trackers.”

The comm chimes from the cockpit again.

“For fuck’s sake, will Thilleon not give it a rest already?” Razor grouses, climbing back up.

He drops back down a moment later, face serious.

“They’ve caught up with the Mandalorian.”

Well, then. It looks like their opportunity might have arrived sooner than expected.

\--

EXTRACTION

The Mandalorian must have been low on fuel when he fled Marowa, because he hadn’t made it far before getting spotted at a station. Thilleon’s cruiser is a bit ahead of Blue Team, but they should arrive shortly after, in time to lend a hand as backup.

A third chance to help out the Mandalorian. Lucky groans at his luck. How did that saying go? ‘Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is the Force’?

Veero and Dubs cover intel while they prep and gear for combat.

The Teksako system features a decently populated planet, with substantial textile trade industries, but its on one of its multitude of moons that Thilleon has found the target. It’s small and barely habitable, with thin air and only point-eight-six grav, with a terrain consisting largely of hills separated by shallow canyons. The moon features a fueling station, a mechanic’s yard, a pair of bars, and not much else--it’s an outpost catering towards passing freighters or smugglers, not locals, common in these mid-tier systems on trade routes.

It’s here that the Mandalorian has been cornered.

Their shuttle arrives in the system, and Lucky listens to the incoming combat intel as Thilleon’s leading forces engage the Mandalorian. He gets confronted in one of the bars, but manages to lead the chase away from the settlement and into to the surrounding rolling hills, taking out a lot of troopers along the way.

A small, petty part of Lucky is gratified; that’s what happens when his intel gets ignored. He could’ve warned the Storm Troopers that the Mandalorian likes to rig terrain to collapse on pursuit, but noooo, Thilleon is too good for Lucky’s intel and now there’s at least eight troopers dead to a rockfall.

Razor spots the Mandalorian’s ship on their way in, but he touches their shuttle down beside the other Death Trooper shuttle parked outside of the settlement. This puts them at the entrance to the canyons that wind between the steep, small hills the Mandalorian has disappeared into.

DT-L13, DT-V08, and DT-S47 disembark and go into the hills, splitting up to join the hunt. DT-W22 heads to help with triage of the Mandalorian’s trail of victims--he’s medic qualified, even if he usually spends much more time ending lives than saving them. 

DT-R29 stays with the ship. “I’ve got a feeling,” he explains. “The Force--it’s like there’s a wave coming in.”

S47 makes a noise of agreement, and L13 feels it too, even if to his mind’s eye, it's more like an avalanche bearing down.

 _There’s no going back_.

L13 can’t tell if it’s the hand of the Force, or just his normal luck, but he’s successfully chosen the pursuit trail that ends up leading to the Mandalorian. Comm chatter and his HUD alert him when the Mandalorian is found--he’s only minutes away, but that’s enough time for them to successfully overwhelm and subdue their target, albeit with more losses.

L13 catches up to the fight right as a Death Trooper is about to put a blaster bolt through the Mandalorian’s head.

“Hold fire!” L13 snaps, turning his voice modulator up for effect. “Orders specify live capture!”

The other Death Trooper--DT-330 according to the HUD--complies, but he doesn’t look happy about it.

“This scum killed two of our own,” 330 snarls, scrambled for Death Trooper encryption. _Sucks to suck_ , L13 wants to say, but he holds it in. At least it was scrambled--the Mandalorian took out many more general troopers than just two, and a good dozen remain surrounding them. They probably wouldn’t have appreciated their fallen comrades being overlooked.

“Are you questioning orders?” L13 asks, sharp. He doesn’t scramble himself; power plays work better with Storm Trooper witnesses.

330 stiffens. “Never!” To a Death Trooper, there is no greater sin than being accused of disobedience.

Yes, L13 is very aware of the irony, thank you very much. That doesn’t mean he won’t stoop to using every tool at his disposal.

“Then call it in to the Commander,” he orders 330, who gives him a nod. “Is the asset present?”

330 shakes his head. “Negatory. We believe he has hidden it nearby. Scout Troopers are searching now.”

Well, that’s a small break of luck. L13 takes a breath and feels for the asset, but it’s not in the immediate vicinity, and he can’t afford the focus necessary to check further than that.

Instead, L13 gives the Mandalorian a critical once over. He’s injured, possibly badly judging from the visible amount of blood on his armor, but he’s conscious, held on his knees between two more of Thilleon’s ‘discount death troopers’, as Veero so eloquently called them.

He’s also unrestrained apart from being physically gripped, because apparently competency is too much to ask for. Any moment now and the Mandalorian is likely to make a last-ditch risky maneuver that will result in killing a bunch of troopers and also probably himself.

Well, that looks like a good opportunity for L13 to insert himself into the situation and hopefully save everyone from themselves, Mandalorian and Troopers alike.

“Capture protocol means cuffs,” L13 berates the two Death Troopers holding the Mandalorian-- DT-759 and DT-912 according to the HUD.

He strides over and shoves away 912, pulling a set of wrist cuffs from his own tool loadout. He leans down and cuffs the Mandalorian’s hands in front of him--technically the protocol regulations call for rear-cuffing, but none of the other troopers even seem to notice the lapse. Figures.

L13 feels how hyper-tense the Mandalorian is under his hands, how desperately he must be looking for a move he can make to protect his child, and L13 knows that desperate people can do some very dumb things. He needs to try and settle the Mandalorian down if he is going to have a chance to get him out of this situation.

As he leans over to to tighten the cuffs, L13 subtly thumbs his comms off so he can whisper close to the Mandalorian’s helmet, “We have _gotta_ stop meeting like this.”

The Mandalorian twitches in recognition, and L13 tries to give his upper arm a small reassuring squeeze as he straightens back up--though looking closer now, he thinks maybe that arm was shot, so maybe it conveyed more pain than reassurance. Well, it’s the thought that counts, right?

330 comes over. “Commander Thilleon is on his way. Let’s get this trash to the higher ground.”

L13 doesn’t relinquish his hold on the Mandalorian, but instead hauls him to his feet and frog marches him up one of the bigger hills nearby. Up above the canyons, there’s an expanse of level ground, and it is here that Thilleon’s personal shuttle lands.

It’s far from an ideal situation, but L13 keeps calm. He can see on his HUD that S47 is nearby and approaching, and V08 isn’t much further. Right now he and the Mandalorian are outnumbered, with the three Death Troopers, and twelve additional Storm Troopers. If he can stall until his teammates rendezvous, he will be in much better shape. As it stands, two versus fifteen is not his ideal odds.

L13 halts next to the shuttle, holding the Mandalorian in place. Thilleon has disembarked from his ship and is gloating. 

“So, here is where our mission ends,” Thilleon drawls to the Mandalorian. “You had a good run, but let this be your lesson: _nothing_ escapes the Empire’s grasp for long.”

The Mandalorian turns his helmet to watch Thilleon, but says nothing.

Thilleon tilts his head. “Tell me, where have you hidden the asset you stole?”

The Mandalorian stays silent, but L13 can feel how he tenses beneath his touch at the mention of his child.

“No? Not talking?” Thilleon paces a little closer. “The way I see it, you have two options. You can tell me where the asset is. Or, I can get out the interrogation droid I have on my ship…and then you can tell me where the asset is, with a few extra steps in between.”

L13 can _feel_ the fury pouring off the Mandalorian. He still isn’t talking, though.

Then any remaining good luck runs out. L13 hears the news via chatter in his helmet comms at the same time as Thilleon hears it in his earpiece.

A pair of Scout Troopers have found the asset, and they are on their way. Chatter in his comm may have given him warning, but he would feel it in the Force anyways; the child is like a beacon as it flies towards him, carried on a speeder bike.

The speeder bikes are outpacing S47 and V08 and will arrive before they do. Bad, bad luck; L13 is starting to sweat.

Thilleon gives the Mandalorian a tight, dark smile. “It seems that your little silent act is all a waste. Didn’t I just say that nothing escapes our grasp for long?” He throws a hand out to gesture to the two arriving Scout Troopers, who park their bikes and approach, throwing crisp salutes to Thilleon.

“Sir, the asset as requested,” one of them says, holding up a sack. The sack wriggles, and then a small green head emerges. The child catches sight of its father and makes a distressed noise, trying to pull free of its prison, and the Scout Trooper carrying it gives it a firm thump on the head with his closed fist, making it squeak and fall back into the bag.

The noise of rage the Mandalorian makes is distracting enough that he almost throws himself free of L13 and 759--only a swift blow to the head from the butt end of 759’s rifle stops him, dropping him back down to his knees, briefly stunned.

L13 gets a hold of him again and squeezes his arm tightly, silently willing him to stay quiet a little longer--his team is on the way. They might be able to salvage this.

Thilleon directs the Scout Trooper to take the child to the shuttle. “Let’s get the asset back to the cruiser. Dr. Matuas can’t wait to get his hands on this thing.” L13 watches the Scout Trooper enter the shuttle and realizes he can’t let that happen.

Hmm. New plan.

In one swift movement, Lucky lets go of the Mandalorian, raises his rifle, and shoots Thilleon in the face.

There’s a moment of stunned disbelief from the rest of the troopers, which sucks for them, because Lucky doesn’t believe in wasting the element of surprise. Before the blood misting through the air has even started to settle, Lucky turns and shoots 759 before they can react, aiming the tip of rifle under his chin and squeezing two quick shots up into his helmet. 

Then the Mandalorian is on his feet, grabbing Lucky’s blaster pistol from its holster with his still-cuffed hands and opening fire on the remaining stunned troopers. He’s smart and goes for 330 first, so Lucky takes out 912 instead, receiving a glancing blaster bolt to the shoulder in return.

That’s the three Death Troopers down, and now the Storm Troopers are finally realizing that, oh right, there’s a firefight happening. All hell breaks loose, and a barrage of blaster bolts fly in all directions.

Lucky shoves the Mandalorian behind one of the parked speeder bikes--it’s pretty shit cover, but that’s better than no cover--and pulls a thermal grenade from his belt and twists it, tossing it to the bulk of the troopers. While they both duck from the explosion--his HUD helpfully informs him that three troopers were killed in the blast--Lucky quickly swipes his bracer over the Mandalorian’s cuffs, releasing them.

The Mandalorian immediately twists and fires off a volley of shots, and the pair of markers on Lucky’s HUD that go dim shows just how much damage he can do. Lucky wishes he could spare more attention to him; he’s never actually seen the Mandalorian in action, only the impressive and deadly results, which he thinks is pretty unfortunate.

He has more pressing concerns at the moment; concerns like, the nine remaining enemy combatants all trying very hard to shoot him.

“Me left you right!” he yells to the Mandalorian and gets a grunt in return. When he next pops over from cover to open fire, he starts, as he called, at the left-most trooper and takes out three of them before a glancing bolt across his arm sends him ducking back down. The Mandalorian has listened and taken out two of the troopers to the right side, and now only four more remain.

Wait, make that three. The Mandalorian has helped himself to Lucky’s grenades and now a crater is all that remains of one of the troopers.

The three remaining troopers are spaced with good cover of their own, and Lucky is really starting to find the speeder bike lacking. His legs have taken a couple of shots now, and while his armored boots have dispersed the bulk of the blaster shot damage, it’s not sustainable.

He pops up for a moment to try to spy better cover or an angle he can take on the other troopers, but return fire pins him back down again.

But then a close-spaced burst of blaster shots from a long-distance rifle takes all three of them out, one right after the other, fired from their unprotected flank.

Lucky grins. He knows who pulled the trigger on those shots.

The ground forces are cleared now, but the shuttle’s engines are firing up, in the middle of its take off routine. The pilot is clearly alive and has decided he’s not sticking around, and now he’s trying to take off--with the child.

Lucky hops over the speeder bikes in one swift motion--he needs to stop the shuttle! If it takes off, they can’t shoot it down without risking the child, and retrieving the child from the star cruiser would be very, very difficult.

The shuttle starts to lift, and he’s about to make a run for the still-open shuttle ramp when the ship suddenly stills and settles back to the ground.

Sevy has shown up, and she’s kneeling in front of the ship in a firing stance and lowering down a gun he recognizes as the Mandalorian’s Amban rifle. Lucky realizes she must have just taken out the pilot.

“I _need_ one of these babies!” she whoops, sounding pumped about the gun--her own sniper rifle doesn’t have the sort of kick it takes to pierce the thick transparisteel windows of a cockpit--but she tosses it like a javelin at Lucky when he rounds the ship.

“Good timing!” Lucky calls to her, catching the gun with ease.

His comm crackles to like in his ear, tuned to the team’s personal channel. 

It’s Dubs. “You guys good?”

Lucky thumbs in to reply. “Yeah, I shot Thilleon in the face. So uh, probably time to do like we decided.”

“Not really convo for open comms,” Veero cuts in, and whoops, he’s got a point. Their channel is scrambled, but that only goes so far, and there’s still a star cruiser in orbit--one probably full of panicked officers that are probably calling for all kinds of reinforcements right now. Their communications hub is no doubt recording all of the broadcasted transmissions.

“Shit, my bad,” Lucky apologizes.

“You’re forgiven, but only because you shot Thilleon,” Veero replies. “Hey, do you need backup, old man?”

“I wouldn’t mind it,” Dubs answers, and he does sound a little strained. Right, he was surrounded by Thilleon’s forces, too. Lucky probably just put him in an awkward spot, depending on how informative the outgoing communications were from the troopers that he was busy gunning down.

“On my way!” Veero says.

Razor cuts in. “I’m coming too.”

“No, prep the shuttle for lift-off,” Dubs tells him. Lucky can hear blaster fire in the background as he talks. “There’s not many left here, Veero and I can handle clean up, let’s aim for breaking atmo ASAP.”

“Affirmative,” Razor says.

“Affirmative,” Sevy echoes. “We’ll finish up here and rendezvous.”

She turns to Lucky and talks to him directly, off comms. “I’ll do site clean up, you secure the mission target?”

“Works for me,” Lucky agrees. 

Sevy starts doing the rounds, humming cheerfully to herself while she checks each fallen trooper to make sure they are fully dead and shooting the ones that aren’t.

Lucky leaves her to it and goes back to the Mandolorian. He’s still down on his knees behind the shot-up speeder bike, swaying in a slightly concerning matter, so Lucky comes and leans over to look down at him. “Hey, are you alright?” There’s no reply.

Lucky pulls off a glove, then catches hold of one of the Mandalorian’s wrists, tugging the vambrace up so that he can press his bare fingers to the pulse point there. His heartbeat is a little erratic, but it’s surprisingly strong, and his skin is warm to Lucky’s touch.

His skin is also a lovely golden tan color, and looks like very human skin. Lucky rubs his fingertips back and forth a little on it, a bit fascinated.

“Huh. I’m not going to lie, I kind of thought you would have green skin,” he tells the Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian just looks over at his held wrist, then rolls his head dazedly to stare up at him. Then he simply tips over, unconscious.

Lucky blinks. “Well, shit.”

That draws Sevy’s attention, and she sticks her head around the corner of the ship and takes in the sight. “Did you kill him?”

“No?” Lucky answers, uncertainly. “I hope not?”

He kneels down beside the Mandalorian, but it seems he really is just passed out. None of his injuries look particularly fatal to Lucky’s unpracticed eye, though he knows his idea of ‘fatal’ isn’t necessarily the same standard other humans are held to--and apparently the Mandalorian is human, after all.

Sevy steps over to stand beside Lucky. “So this is him, huh?” She looks down at the Mandalorian, head tilting contemplatively. Then she snorts and nudges Lucky. “He _is_ pretty cute.”

Lucky flushes under his helmet. “It’s not like that! And what do you mean he’s cute? He’s in full armor with a helmet! And covered in blood!”

Sevy laughs at him. “See? You already have so much in common.”

Lucky _is_ also in full armor and helmet and covered in blood, but that’s besides the point!

“Look, could you go get the asset?” he asks her, trying to get things back on track. “I’ll get out a gravsled and load this one up so we can get them back to his ship.”

Sevy gives him a mock salute and disappears back around the corner. Lucky sighs, and then kicks open the under-ship cargo bin, knowing there’s usually some sort of repulsor sled in these things.

Sure enough, luck is with him, and there’s one present that’s big enough to fit a human body. He turns it on and floats it over to the Mandalorian. He’s getting a bit concerned by how much blood the man has lost; there’s a blaster wound in particular on his side that looks a bit nasty, and while Lucky didn’t think it looked life-threatening on its own, he’s starting to feel a bit of urgency about getting bacta on it.

He’s just finished getting the Mandalorian loaded on the sled and tossed his amban rifle alongside him when Sevy reappears, child in arms.

“You weren’t joking, Lucky, this thing is adorable.” She bounces it a little in her arms and it giggles. “You weren’t joking about the Force, either. It feels like a hurricane. A very tiny, very cute hurricane.”

Just then the child catches sight of its unconscious parent and makes a distraught noise. It starts reaching out towards the Mandalorian, so Sevy looks at Lucky. “Should I put it on the sled too? Or, hmm, wait, seeing an injured parent is probably traumatic for a child, right?”

Lucky shrugs at her. How should he know? “A little too late to worry now, might as well let it ride with its father.”

Sevy lowers the child down next to the unconscious Mandalorian, and it promptly clambers to curl up next to his side where the worst of the bleeding is.

“Ugh, baby, no, you’re gonna get all gross and bloody--” she starts to say, but then abruptly stops.

Lucky freezes too.

They both feel it. The Force is swirling all around them, and funneling into this child, passing through it into the man beside it, a steady flow of _rest-heal-clean-restore_ that sweeps past Lucky like icy water. He senses more than sees the wound on the Mandalorian’s side knit together, made whole once again.

Then, suddenly, the flow cuts off and the child slumps down to join its parent in slumber.

Lucky and Sevy stare at each other.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” she says, with feeling. “No wonder Gideon wants to get his hands on it. That’s...wow.”

Lucky just nods dumbly at her. He had felt the way the Force was drawn to the child, but he hadn’t known it could do anything like _that_.

She rubs a gloved hand down the front of her helmet, inadvertently smearing a bit of blood spray around. “Okay, I’m going to steal a speeder bike and get back to the shuttle. I’ll meet you at the Mandalorian’s ship?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lucky agrees, and they part to do just that.

Lucky spends the slog through the narrow canyons to the Mandalorian’s ship debating with himself about what to do next. The Mandalorian is unconscious, more Imperials are certainly coming, and the child is also down for the count. There’s really only one solution that he can see, and it’s honestly a bit terrifying.

He’s gotten the sled with the Mandalorian loaded up into his ship’s cargo bay when Sevy reappears on her purloined speeder bike, a familiar oversized bag in tow.

“You’re going with him, aren’t you?” she asks, and he nods, not really surprised she already knew; it was the obvious conclusion. She throws his gear bag at his feet. “Good. Dubs thinks splitting up is the best plan. They aren’t going to let either of us go without a chase, so making them pursue us both splits their forces.”

“Yeah, and the Mandalorian is skilled, so I think he’s the best chance for keeping his kid out of Gideon’s hands, if I can help him with a head start.”

Sevy nods. “Dubs said the same. The current working plan is to head opposite ways, get some distance, and then meet back up once we’re clear.”

Lucky does some quick math. “So what, probably at least two, three weeks? That’s absolute minimum I can see for slipping any tails, depending on what resources Gideon really _does_ have.” That’s a long time to be away from his team.

“We need time to ditch the imperial shuttle anyways,” Sevy agrees. “I think Veero has a plan for that. Oh, and speaking of Veero, there’s a secure comlink in your bag so we can reach each other. Expect a call in a week as a scheduled check-in, otherwise he says to try to save it for emergencies, it’s secure, but not _that_ secure.”

“Roger.” Lucky sucks in a deep breath. This is happening. It’s really happening.

Sevy pulls off her helmet, and Lucky mirrors her, his blue eyes meeting her grey. “One final thing--the tracking chips.” She pulls out a knife. “I’ll do yours if you do mine?” she offers.

It’s quick but tricky work, cutting the trackers out of each other, and when Lucky crushes the blood-slick chip between his fingers, it feels almost as liberating as shooting Thilleon in the face.

He and Sevy stare at each other for a long moment. Then they are hugging, clinging tightly to each other. This close together, pressed chest to chest, kyber crystal to kyber crystal, even Lucky can feel the way the Force wraps around them and between them.

“ _Stay safe_ ,” he whispers into her blood-streaked neck.

“You too. If you let anything happen to you,” she mumbles back, “I will come and kill you myself.”

They step apart, and if Lucky could still cry, he’s sure he would be blinking back tears. Oh Force, what is he going to do without his team? He glances down at the man he’s about to be travelling with instead for the next two or three weeks and tries very hard to think of it as just a loaner mission.

“Corin,” Sevy says his name--his _real_ name--and his eyes snap back to her, startled. “May the Force be with you.”

Corin gives her a tremulous smile. “You as well. Good luck.”

She pulls him in for a final crushing hug, and then she is gone.

\--

Corin leaves the Mandalorian passed out in the ship’s tiny personal quarters, the sleeping child tucked in beside him. He doesn’t bother with any first aid; the worst is healed, and if anything else becomes problematic, well, apparently the child can fix it. Imperial reinforcements could show up any minute, and they need to get in the sky.

The ship’s registration says it’s called the _Razor Crest_ , which puts Corin in the mind of his teammate--except, wait, Razor is Luka now. Either way, Corin isn’t the pilot that Luka is, but he’s been trained to do the basics, so he points them towards unregulated territory opposite of the direction his team had gone, does a couple quickie hyperspace jumps to get some distance and break up the trail, then drops down to low-speed cruise.

He hopes the Mandalorian wakes up soon. Corin isn’t good with navigation, he really only knows the planets he’s had missions on--and half of those he barely remembers--so he doesn’t have any idea where to go, but the Mandalorian must have had some sort of plan in mind. Luckily, there’s still plenty of fuel and food supply, so they have time.

He trades his armor for more comfortable travel attire, double-checks to make sure the Mandalorian is still breathing, and settles in to wait.

The child rouses first, and there’s a bassinet-style seat in the cockpit that clearly belongs to it, so Corin lets it ride along as they both watch the endless black of space pass by. The kid is good company; its sleepy burbled noises help distract Corin from the lurking melancholy of being separated from his team.

Only a few hours later, Corin hears movement on the ship, followed by the child’s delight. He turns in time to see the Mandalorian enter the cockpit behind him.

“Oh good! You’re finally awake!” Corin grins warmly at him.

The Mandalorian clocks him square in the face with a heavy fist.

Corin’s last thought is that he probably should’ve seen that coming, and then everything goes dark.

\--

When Corin wakes up, he’s by himself on the cold floor of the cargo hold of the ship. His arms are tightly locked behind him in a set of heavy sleeve cuffs that bind him from wrist to elbow, the kind bounty hunters use, and one foot is shackled to a thick metal support beam by a short, stout chain. The Mandalorian is nowhere in sight, but the ship’s engines are humming, so he is likely in the cockpit. A small bit of luck? Corin doesn’t get the sense that much time has passed while he was out; the Mandalorian probably wasn’t expecting Corin to wake yet, but Corin has enhanced recovery speeds, so.

His restraints are solid, but Corin won’t let a measly thing like that stop him. He grits his teeth, levers his arms down behind him, and dislocates both of his shoulders. Hunching over, this gives him just enough space to squeeze his arms and elbows below his hips and then legs, bringing them in front of him. He pushes his weight down against his knees and pops his shoulders back into place, hissing a breath as he does so.

There are a great number of advantages to being a Death Trooper, and one of them is the many joints of his they had replaced with higher functioning cybernetic ones. It still hurts like a bitch; but pain is just pain.

Corin contemplates the sleeve cuffs. His maneuver means the short chain attached to his ankle is now stuck in the gap between the cuff and his torso, which severely limits his range of motion and leaves him a bit pretzeled up, but that’s fine; he’s flexible. Long metal cuffs like this have hinges, and after a moment Corin manages to get his teeth underneath the head of the pin in one and work it partly free.

His teeth are also artificial, as sturdy as steel, and with a hidden sharp edge. Very useful for times like this. Saves on dental work, too.

The loose hinge opens up one side of the cuffs enough that he can pull his arm out with only a dislocated thumb. At that point, freeing himself the rest of the way is child’s play.

Corin stands up and stretches, arching his back and taking stock of his aches and pains. Most of his wounds are well on the way to recovery, though his face still hurts where he was struck; the Mandalorian packs a mean punch.

Speaking of the Mandalorian, it’s time to go find him and get a re-do on their reunion. To Corin’s mild surprise, the other man isn’t in the cockpit, but is rather in the small cramped living space adjacent to the cargo hold, clearly halfway through going through all of Corin’s stuff. Rude.

The Mandalorian startles and goes for his blaster when Corin slides opens the door and walks in, rising half out of his seat. “How did you--?!” he starts to demand, then cuts himself off with a sigh. “Right. Death Trooper.”

Corin’s helmet, shiny and black, is sitting front and center on the table that has most of his gear scattered across it. 

“Thanks for the black eye,” Corin says, dropping into the chair across the table from the Mandalorian. He idly starts sorting his weapons back out. After a moment, the Mandalorian slowly lowers back down as well, though he doesn’t relax.

“You’re the Death Trooper that keeps helping us,” the Mandalorian states almost accusingly.

“Yes. Was that not obvious?” Corin is confused. Though maybe that explains why he got decked in the cockpit?

“Why--why are you _here_?” the Mandalorian bites out, still tensed.

Corin wonders if the other man took more head damage than he thought. That one trooper _did_ clock him with his rifle butt that one time, hmm.

“After we killed Thilleon and his men, it’s not like we could just stick around,” Corin points out reasonably. “Reinforcements would’ve been there within hours.”

The Mandalorian stares at him for a long moment. Corin is starting to get concerned he might be concussed. “So you just…came with me,” the Mandalorian eventually says.

Corin smiles at him, glad he’s catching up to speed. “Yeah, my team agreed it was the best way to do it.”

The Mandalorian twitches. “Your team?” he echoes, looking around slightly like he thinks there might be more Death Troopers stashed around the place. 

Corin snorts at the visual. “They took our shuttle and went the other direction, to make it harder for the Empire to chase us both.”

The Mandalorian looks at him for a moment longer, then looks down and picks up a piece of Corin’s armor. “My friend told me you all have tracking chips in your armor. That needs to be destroyed.”

That must explain why he was going through Corin’s things. 

“Oh, that’s just the regular Storm Troopers. They do implanted chips for Death Troopers, I already took care of mine.” He turns his head to the side and lifts the blood-matted fringe of hair at the back to show the scabbed up knife wound at the base of his skull.

The Mandalorian is silent as he takes that in. Then a coo interrupts them. Unnoticed by either man, the child has entered the room and wandered over to Corin to tug at his pant leg.

“Hey, kid,” Corin says smiling down at it. “What do you need?”

The child solemnly holds up a familiar object; it’s the little flashlight Corin had given it only a few weeks prior.

“Oh, you still have that! No, don’t give it back, that’s yours to keep.” He gently pats the little one on its head.

Seeming pleased by this, the child shuffles over to its father, who obligingly picks it up. He’s still staring at Corin.

“So!” Corin says, brightly. “Where are we going?”

For some reason, the Mandalorian just sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mando has no idea what the fuck is going on or why there is now a hot death trooper living on his ship. corin, baby, you suck at explaining shit.
> 
> also it took me over 22k words to get these two idiots on the same ship, which is about 18k more than i expected when i started writing this. whats up w that?? who knows??? not me, that’s for sure, i'm just along for the ride. #justwriterthings


End file.
